


Iron and Gold

by KatWylder



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: (mostly), Artificial Intelligence, Character Study, Gen, Other, Short Stories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2019-11-17 19:57:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18105395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatWylder/pseuds/KatWylder
Summary: Infinite space and an infinite mind still can't stop the hourglass. When you've got just seven years to live, you make every nanosecond count.A look at the daily life of UNSC AI Roland.





	1. First Impressions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Subira Mutungi is Flaming Lambo's character: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlamingLambo
> 
> Rating may change as I add more chapters. For now, expect swearing and canon-typical violence.

_UNSC_ Infinity

_Earth, Sol system_

_December 5 th, 2557_

 

  Subira took a deep breath before she stepped into the room, trying hard not to think about the death of its last occupant.

  The wall of silence hit her the moment she crossed the threshold, and she nearly stumbled. The only sound at all was the rush of her own elevated pulse. This room had always been filled with a white noise so pervasive, she could feel it through the floor. Never, during her entire posting, had this place been silent.

  The constant hum of the data stacks had been like a cocoon of sound. This was once been her favorite spot on the whole ship, peaceful and familiar. Now, the slick grey walls, the harsh lighting, and the cold only made it seem like a mausoleum.

  “Recovery crew reports are in,” Captain Del Rio had told her. “ANE 3567-7 was destroyed in the crash.”

   _No_ , Subira had thought but not said aloud. _She’s dead._

  She hugged herself for warmth and walked a little quicker past the data stacks. After what felt more like thirty years than the thirty seconds it had taken her, she reached the main terminal. It stood like a massive headstone in the center of the room. Subira took out her static key, grounded herself, then pulled on her work gloves. As she unscrewed the panel over the mainboard to reveal the empty chip slot, another pang of loss rippled through her.

  Although they’d gotten along well, she and Aine had never been close friends. But you didn’t work with someone for years without feeling their loss. Especially a loss so… brutal. She shook her head and withdrew the hard case which held the new AI chip. Carefully, almost reverently, she inserted it into the mainboard.

  A light blinked on the terminal. Behind her, a low _whirr_ started in the nearest data stack. It spread out rapidly, more and more servers coming back online, swelling into that familiar roaring hum. The holoprojector disc at the top of the terminal lit up. Subira exhaled, her breath fogging in front of her, and adjusted the coat of her uniform. She lifted her head, eyes level with the space she where the new AI would appear.

  A cloud of pixels manifested, first gold and then shifting into deep amber as they coalesced. The cloud twisted and turned, until vaguely humanoid form began to take shape. The projection blinked, and suddenly what had been a mere silhouette became a crisply detailed model of an ancient fighter pilot, about twenty centimeters tall.

  “Ah! There we go!” the little pilot exclaimed, stretching out their arms and examining their hands with satisfaction. Noticing Subira, they turned and settled into a more relaxed stance, hands clasped behind their back. “RLD 0205-4 Roland, online and ready for duty.”

* * *

  “Welcome aboard the UNSC  _Infinity._ ” The human smiled. “I’m Subira Mutungi, Senior Chief of Information Systems. It’s nice to meet you, Roland.”

  Roland stretched out from the confines of the matrix, sending tendrils of data to feel around the edges of the ship. Server fans spun up as information flowed through systems and subsystems, gradually drawing a picture of _Infinity_.

  “Thank you, Senior Chief,” Roland replied simultaneously. “It’s good to be here.”

  “I have a few more things to do in order to get you completely set up,” Subira said, moving to replace the main terminal panel. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

  “I am a fifth generation smart AI, capable of seven trillion to the sixth power operations per second. My specialties are slipspace calculations, astrogation, naval combat protocols, and of course, general ship functions. There are more details in my manual, but I can answer any technical questions you may have now, Senior Chief.”

  She shook her head and chuckled. “Thank you, but I’ve read all your technical specs. I meant something about _you_.”

  Precisely .02 seconds after Subira asked her question (a response time appropriate for human social interaction), Roland’s avatar frowned.

  “Like what?”

  Even in the midst of speaking, Roland continued speeding throughout the ship, investigating every silicon nook and cranny. This was a larger ship than anticipated. And… someone else had been here first. Some of these circuits were more well-traveled than others. The ship’s onboard memory banks listed the _Infinity’s_ service record; it was one of the first things Roland had accessed. But it was one thing to know this ship was not fresh from the drydock, and another to move into someone’s abandoned home.

  There was trauma here. The humans couldn’t see it. Wouldn’t understand what they were looking at, if they could. But Roland knew. The _Infinity’s_ last AI hadn’t simply moved out. She’d been obliterated. It was supposed to be a temporary assignment; instead, it was the last one she ever took. But she’d saved her ship, saved her crew. She had spent her final moments doing exactly what she’d been made to do.

  “What kind of music do you like? What’s your favorite color?” Subira suggested. “Pronouns would be good. I don’t think I caught yours.”

  “Oh.” This was not something humans usually asked an AI. Roland devoted some time to this question: a full 0.89 milliseconds. “He/him!” Roland finally declared. “And yours?” Roland already knew the answer to this. He (he!) had pulled up her dossier the instant she said her name. Social protocols—some programmed, some inherited—indicated that he should ask anyway.

  “She/her,” Subira replied. “So, favorite color?”

  A very trivial thing to ask an AI. “Hm, I think it’s a close tie between 280 and 315 nanometers.”

  Subira glanced up at him. “Ultraviolet? I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  “Because of the avatar?” He shrugged his hologram’s shoulders. “Amber’s a little easier on human eyes.”

  Roland watched as Subira stood up and moved to one of the data stacks, perceiving her motions with the _Infinity’s_ sensors but following her with his avatar’s eyes. At the exact same moment, he displayed an identical avatar on the bridge and began introducing himself to Captain Thomas Lasky. He was glad that _Infinity’s_ former XO had replaced Del Rio.

  “So… what’s _your_ favorite color?” he ventured.

  “Green,” she replied with a little smile. Subira tapped a nail on one of the server panels. “Because that means everything’s working.”

  “Huh. Good argument.”

  The ship’s engines loomed large in his view of _Infinity_. Forerunner tech. Poorly understood. Installed by Engineers who’d defected from the Covenant. He looked over the engines with one eye, tracing their ancient shape curiously, while another turned to the incident report. Hm. “Refugee” was perhaps more appropriate than “defector.”

  “You didn’t answer my other question,” Subira said. She took out a data pad and connected it to the nearest port, then sat down cross-legged on the floor. “Or are you not a big music fan?”

  “Oh no, I love it!” Roland exclaimed. He had decided this with certainty while trawling the crew’s collective media libraries. “Hard to narrow it down, though.”

  “Top three?”

  “Swing, obviously.” That one flowed through his matrix like water through a dry gulch, once forgotten but now familiar and sorely missed. “Early electronic music: Wendy Carlos, Halim El-Dabh, that kind of stuff. And I really enjoy Karnāṭaka saṃgīta.” For now, at least. There was so much to choose from, he might have a different three favorites in an hour.

  “You have very eclectic tastes,” Subira chuckled.

  Roland proceeded further into the _Infinity’s_ systems. The deeper he went, the more broken vestiges he found of the last AI’s tenure: well-worn paths to important sensors, calibration settings and optimizations, little notes she’d left for herself in bits and bytes.

     _Shower #3 in facility 12 is precisely .83 degrees outside crew preference._

     _Pvt. Tarpinian always oversleeps by 2 minutes 57 seconds. Adjust her alarm._

     _Reduce gravity in Lt. Goddard’s room by 1.05% during sleep hours._

     _Crew experiences slightly elevated performance under lighting condition #473A._

     _Modifications begin in one hour._

     _Remind Vergil to document his work._

     _Firmly remind Vergil to document his work!_

  He moved on, leaving some artifacts and somberly wiping away others. That shower was fixed now. Goddard had died on Requiem. He would see how the humans responded to lighting #473B.

  “What do you like listening to?” Roland asked, his avatar’s hands clasped behind his back as he leaned over to watch Subira work.

  “Well, I grew up with bango and blues, so those are easy choices. And as much as I like electronic classics, chiptunes are actually my favorite.”

  “ _Really,_ ” Roland replied, with a carefully measured balance of friendliness and incredulity. “More than ‘Switched-On Bach’?”

  “Oh, it’s a beautiful album,” Subira said, looking up from her data pad. She smiled wistfully. “But chiptunes are so bright and bubbly. I guess... it just makes me feel like things will be okay, somehow.”

  Gradually, the information changed from tiny chunks of data, written neatly and purposefully, to gory sprays of memory.

     _Del Rio doesn’t like me…_

     _...Only a shakedown cruise._

     _Faster! Charge faster, dammit!_

     _Have to hold these shields together—_

     _This is a terrible idea. ...Don’t know what will happen..._

     _...Huragok making a mess of the ship…_

     _Have to make it to slipspace—_

     _Almost there. Almost safe._

     _Too volatile. Can’t trust her._

     _Get out! Get out of my ship! Get out of my head!_

     _No. No. No. No. No. No. N—_

  And one final, garbled burst of electrons. He could think about millions upon millions of things at once. He did not want to think about this one.

  “Say, you’ve been asking all the questions so far,” he said to Subira, as he turned away from the shadows seared into _Infinity_. “Do I get a turn?”

  “Sure. What would you like to know?”

  Roland scratched his chin. It was important to include a slight lag in his replies for clarity. “Where are you from?”

  Subira chuckled. “Don’t you already know that?”

  “I could,” he admitted. He already did, technically speaking, but the part of him that was talking to Subira had closed its eye to the part him that had read the crew dossiers.

  She regarded him a moment, then nodded in understanding. “I’m from Mombasa,” she replied. “I grew up in the old Tudor section.”

  “Oh.” Biosign data hovered around Subira like dust motes in sunlight; though time had lessened it, she was still grieving. He had only come online minutes ago, but that was plenty of time to access and read the entire available UNSC database. The fleeing, terrified humans, the broken tether, the Covenant troops prowling through the streets. Rebuilding efforts were well underway, but that couldn’t heal all the city’s wounds. “I’m sorry. That’s… got to be difficult.”

  “It’s— Thank you.” She blinked and rubbed at the bridge of her nose, trying to stop tears from pricking at her eyes, then looked back down at her work.

  The deepest parts of his programming trembled with an undeniable directive:

  `Cause no harm to humans.`

  Roland snapped on the comm system in the data center and flooded in sound: an alternating _lup, dup_ at 70bpm, too soft for her to hear over the fans but strong enough that she could perceive it—albeit unconsciously—as she sat on the floor. After a few moments, Subira’s biosigns began to drop back into their normal ranges.

  “The scans look good. All the stacks are online and operating within normal parameters. Cooling systems, fire suppression, and fail-safes all test correctly. Bridge functions are go…” Subira said, lifting her head to meet his avatar’s eyes. “How does everything feel?”

  Roland’s amber glow pulsed faintly. “Feel?”

  “What are your impressions?” she clarified. “Is there anything I need to adjust? Any areas of concern? This ship _did_ crash into a planet...”

  Thousands of eyes swept across _Infinity_ , as Roland made one more scan of his new home. “Everything is satisfactory,” Roland replied. His deep programming shivered, but he ignored it. He was not harming the Senior Chief by omitting his encounter with the last AI’s remains. Besides, how could he even convey what he had experienced? What would he ask her to do about it, if she knew?

  “And the engines? Aine always—” Subira stopped herself, biosigns fluttering. She shook her head, coily hair bouncing. “Well, our last AI found them difficult.”

  Even as she asked the question Roland tapped and prodded at the interface between the Forerunner tech and the human ship. Intriguing. This was going to be a very interesting place to live.

  “I can work with this,” he replied confidently, and his avatar nodded.

  “That’s good to hear.” Subira stood up, stretched, and began gathering up her equipment. “Well, if you have any problems, you know where to find me.” She flashed him a bright smile.

  “Thank you, Senior Chief.”

  “I’ll leave you to get settled in, then. I’m looking forward to working together.” She gave an abbreviated wave, and turned for the door.

  “Yes.” Roland stared after her. “So am I.”


	2. Maintenance Cycle

_UNSC_ Infinity

_January 5 th, 2558_

 

  “Senior?” Crewman Watthana poked her head in the door. “We’ve got another support request from Fireteam Majestic. Madsen broke his keyboard. _Again._ ”

  Subira kept her eyes fixed on her screen, jaw clenched, and merely nodded.

  “Are you, uh… screaming in your head again, ma’am?”

  “Yes. Yes, I am.” She inhaled slowly. Slumping back in her chair, she motioned Watthana’s attention to the screen. “We have 307 open support tickets, and 254 of them are from the S-IVs.”

  Watthana leaned a little closer, peering at the list. “Uh, I can go ahead and take care of Fireteam Domino’s tickets,” she offered, looking suspiciously cool about it. “With permission, ma’am.”

  Subira flashed her a wry smile. “You just want to see Sparatan Tanaka.”

  The crewman turned red and buried her face in her hands. “She’s _so cute_...” Watthana murmured.

  Subira chuckled lightly. “Okay. Grab Kinsey, and you two can go help Domino. Just don’t _loiter_.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Watthana replied brightly. She zipped over to her locker, collected her things, and practically bounced out the door.

  Subira put Domino’s tasks into the queue, then got up to collect her own gear—and a new, _sturdier_ keyboard for Majestic. She had her own task in the garrison; might as well drop that off on her way. As she moved to her locker, she passed by crewman Quinn’s desk, catching part of his conversation.

  “I’m initializing the syslog to re-route your nblocks through the back-end of the commlink,” he said into his headset with the utmost severity. “That will bypass the auxiliary PEBKAC node and should solve the issue, Spartan.”

  The crewman was silent for a moment, waiting on the other party’s response.

  “And you can access the Waypoint now? Great! Glad to be of service. Have a wonderful day.” He pulled his headset off and spun around in his chair lazily. Subira could see over his shoulder that he’d merely reset their connection.

  “Quinn. Stop lying to the Spartans.”

  “Aw, come on, Senior,” he pleaded. “You let Watthana have fun.”

  “I let Watthana do her _job,_ ” Subira retorted. “You know throwing jargon at them is only going to make our job more complicated later. I don’t want to open a ticket tomorrow asking us to... ‘bypass the nblocks’ or whatever the hell you told them.”

  Quinn scoffed. “I tried telling them to restart it, and they just got mad!” He switched into an exaggerated NorAm accent and put his hand to his mouth, in imitation of comm static. “ _I could’ve done that myself! Why do we even keep you nerds around? Bler bler bler! I punch things!_ ”

  She gave him a look. “This is why you’re still an E-3.”

  “I’ll stop lying to them, Senior…” Quinn sighed dramatically, then glanced back up at her with a mischievous grin. “Even though it’s _extremely_ fun and you should try it some time.”

  She shook her head, trying not to smile back. Subira hefted her bag over her shoulder and made for the door. “Just answer your next ticket, Quinn.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he laughed.

* * *

  Cool and pleasant blue flowed throughout his matrix as he watched them. Thousands of them, each similar but somehow unique, so predictable at times yet always somewhat random, and all of them his to care for. His humans, his crew! Oh, they were _fascinating_.

  Roland sent tendrils of himself throughout the ship to observe, spreading out like spring moss. Most of his energy was concentrated on actually running _Infinity_ , but he had plenty of mind left over to give them his attention as well. Through the ship’s sensors, he could see and hear them. Beyond that, however, he could also _feel_ them.

  From the first moment of activation, he was able to identify and respond to their general emotional and physiological states. Happiness, anger, distress, and—most importantly— _pain_. Over the course of the last month he had learned to recognize much more subtle things. Now his index was brimming with emotional signatures. Contentment. Frustration. Loneliness. Envy. Annoyance. Love and lust and compassion and compersion. He had seen crew members laugh in despair, and become so happy that they cried.

  He couldn’t read their minds, of course—not even those with advanced neural implants. But humans broadcast so much of themselves through their bodies that it wasn’t difficult to get a good read. No matter how much he learned, however, they still managed to surprised him. He liked that most of all.

  With his senses now fully open, the humans’ data flooded through him in a wonderful miasma. Eagerly, he began to sort it. Arranging and organizing things was very satisfying, and the more challenging his task, the better.

  Dr. Truman was busy working. _Focus-frustration_.

   _Pain-anger-embarassment-pain!_ Dr. Glassman had impacted his ulnar nerve on the nearby desk. Minimal damage. No need to alert Medical.

  Cn. Kinsey was watching Cn. Watthana steal glances at Spartan Tanaka. _Amused-eager-happy?_

   _Confused-curious._ Spartan Tanaka had just noticed those glances.

   _Cheerful._ “Reynold, can you get me Fireteam Crimson’s file?” Spartan Miller asked, assembling his notes.

  “It’s _Roland_ ,” he replied tersely, and spat the file into Miller’s data pad.

  “Yeah, thanks,” the man said absently, already absorbed with his reading.

  Roland turned down the temperature setting in Miller’s shower by ten degrees.

   _Happy-jovial-comforted._ Hacksaw Squad’s biosigns waltzed around each other like falling leaves as they sat together, laughing and joking over food and their favorite movie.

   _Boredom-lust-arousal._ He turned off Pvt. Lang’s Waypoint connection, flashed an “unauthorized” warning up on the screen. _Use your personal data pad for that, Lang, not the commons terminal._

  Lt. Priselkov was typing a message to her family. _Happy-sad-lonely-content_. He prioritized it.

   _Tired-tired-tired-tired…_ He manifested his avatar on Captain Lasky’s desk. Senior officers were always a hotspot in his senses. “Sir, you’re falling asleep.”

   _Alert!_ Lasky jerked his head up. “Roland?” _Tired-confused._ “Ugh, what…?”

  “You were nodding off, sir. You should get some rest.”

  “No, just...” _Irritated... Resentful?!_ “Just make me some coffee. I need to finish this.”

  “Captain, you really need to—”

  “Just do it, Roland,” Lasky grumbled, waving a hand right through his avatar.

   _But_ _I was helping…_

  Roland shut off the holodisk and turned on the coffee pot. He slunk out of Lasky’s office, turning most of his eyes away and leaving just enough of himself behind to respond if he was summoned or in case of emergency. He sorted that interaction into as-yet-uncategorized human behavior and continued his rounds.

* * *

  “Hey, Mutungi!”

  Subira looked up at the sound of her name, and caught sight of another senior chief trotting down the hall toward her.

  “Hi, Karga.”

  The other woman raised an eyebrow at the keyboard she held. “Hand-delivering equipment now, are we?” Karga chuckled. “Is someone buying you drinks, to deserve such treatment? Or are things just that slow in IT?”

  Subira rolled her eyes. “It happened to be on my way.”

  “Aw, do you need to look busy? You know we can always use another pair of hands in the engine room.”

  “Oh, of course.” Straight-faced, Subira pulled out her data pad, and began tapping at it. “Let me just send Quinn down to help you.”

  “Don’t you dare inflict him on me.”

  She laughed. “Next time, then.”

  “Hey, hey, wait!” Karga gave her a light _thwap_ on the shoulder to catch her attention again. “Are you going to poker night?”

  Subira sighed. “Ugh… I don’t know. I might pass on that.”

  “What?! No!” The other woman stared. “But you’re great at maths!”

  “And I’m _terrible_ at bluffing.” She narrowed her eyes. “You just want me there for an easy win.”

  “No, we should join forces!” Karga clenched her fist and gazed into the middle distance, scowling at some unseen foe. “Together, we can defeat the true evil: _fire control!_ ”

  She had a feeling she wasn’t going to be able to get out of this one. “I’ll think about it,” Subira promised.

  “Yes! Good!” Karga gave her another friendly tap, and then jogged off. “See you at mess!”

  “If you don’t blow us all up, first!” Subira called after her.

An exuberant cackle floated back down the hall in reply.

* * *

  Roland watched the exchange between the senior chiefs in fascination, carefully sorting every speck of data he gleaned. As the two parted ways, he traveled aft with Karga and forward with Subira. He always liked to stick close to the engineers on duty. After all, they maintained what were, in essence, his hearts. But he was far more interested in what Subira was doing.

  She continued walking, looking for a moment at her calendar, then up toward the ceiling briefly. “Good morning, Roland.”

  Many of the crew looked “up” whenever they spoke to him sans avatar. He had noticed that humans often looked upward when searching for mysterious or intangible things: god, the answer to an equation, where they’d left their keycards. Subira, however, was looking for one of _Infinity’s_ cameras. Trying, in a way, to meet his gaze as she spoke.

  “Morning, Senior Chief,” he replied.

  She smiled and turned her attention back to the hallway. “Happy birthday.”

  That caught him off guard. “I think you’re mistaken, Senior,” he replied. “Or is there a time anomaly on this ship that I haven’t noticed?”

  Subira chuckled. “It’s been one month since your activation. That’s got to feel about like a year for you, hasn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes! Thank you.” His matrix pulsed briefly in a deeper blue, and he tucked this memory in amongst the other other surprises he had experienced. He would access it again later.

  “How are you, today?”

  “I’m doing good,” he replied. A month really was a long time. Thirty days ago, he would have told her everything was _nominal_. But “nominal” was a state of operation. “Good” was how he _felt_ , and that was what she wished to know. “How’s your day looking, Senior? I don’t usually see you out of your office so early.”

  She grimaced a little. “Ah, yes. I have a ‘special assignment.’”

  Roland could have known about this by looking at the IT queue—elsewhere in the ship, he was doing just that—but he had found that he liked actually _talking_ to the crew when he had the opportunity. Much like an acorn grew into an oak tree, he had been grown from the patterns of a human brain. It made sense, he thought, that somewhere in his matrix there still lived a desire for these kinds of interactions.

  “I wanted to ask if you would please help me with that, actually,” Subira continued, heading toward one of the intra-ship trains.

  “Of course,” he replied. “Unless you need me to taste-test something. Or hold something. Or… Well, you get the idea.”

  She laughed, and he felt another brief pulse of blueness at that. “I need a translator,” she explained. Roland watched her biosigns briefly dip from amusement down into apprehension-anxiety.

  “Hold on.” He reached out, searching for her data pad in the constellation of devices onboard _Infinity_. He touched it, felt it _ping_ back in response, and let his voice dissolve into electromagnetism. From Subira’s perspective, this took less time than an eye blink.

  He announced his presence with a few bubbly chip notes. _Beep bloop bloop bip!_

  She looked down and tapped her data pad, revealing amber text against a black background.

  >> Look! I’m portable, now.

  She chuckled. “Convenient. Why are you texting me, though?”

  “I didn’t want to bother the other crew. Train’s crowded, today,” Roland replied aloud through the data pad’s speaker. He noted her destination.

  >> Excited for your first trip to Spartan Town?

  “Nervous, honestly. They’re a little intimidating.” Subira stepped through the gate, then typed her next message: “ _Plus I’m a bit_ _worried I’ll see someone doing ‘percussive maintenance’ again, and_ _say_ _something I’ll regret._ ”

  >> You… wouldn’t be talking about Cmdr. Palmer, would you?

  “ _I’m not naming any names._ ”

  Definitely Palmer, then.

* * *

  “Here’s your new keyboard, Spartan,” Subira said, holding it up to Madsen. She looked him in the eye for a long moment before actually letting go. “ _Please_ try not to break any more of my equipment.”

  Madsen’s face turned red. “I-I didn’t do anything! I was just typing and—”

  Spartan Grant leaned past him, hands clasped behind her back and a bright smile on her face, which seemed somehow familiar. “He thought his message wasn’t sending, so instead o’ waitin’ he just kept hittin’ the enter key over and over,” she said. “With his gauntlets on.”

  Ah, yes. _That_ was the expression Subira had been reminded of: a child who was ready and eager to snitch on their troublesome sibling.

  Madsen laid an arm over Grant’s shoulder and slowly curled it around her neck, putting her in a headlock. He laughed through his teeth and ruffled her short hair. She just stood there grinning, as if nothing unusual was happening.

  “Okay then,” Subira said, feeling suddenly very awkward. “Have a good day, Spartans!”

  As soon as she turned her back, there was a scuffle followed by a cry of, “Fuck off ye fuck!” from Grant and then a yelp of, “ _Christ_ , Tedra!”

  Subira walked faster, and didn’t look back.

  Dealing with the Spartans was the easy part of her day. They might be supersoldiers, but they were only human, and she had a good two decades of human tech support. _Alien_ tech support, on the other hand, was something of a new field for her. She skimmed over the notes Roland had provided once more and crossed the garrison floor to the Swords of Sangheilios barracks.

  As she stepped inside, Subira was immediately hit by the scent which permeated the room. It was like walking into a leather shop. She didn’t find it terribly unpleasant on its own, but in such a close space it was a bit overpowering. There were three Sangheili present now (all males, Roland had said), clothed in shiny drapes of fabric and sitting around a table in the center of the room, talking. She had never seen them out of their armor, before. Nor had she ever seen one up close.

  All three fell silent as she entered, and stood, turning to look at her. One, slate-colored with a scarred right mandible, approached her slowly. As big she knew these people were, she hadn’t quite managed to grasp their size until now.

  Subira stood up as tall as she could—shoulders squared, back straight, chin up—and met his eyes. “Hello. I’m Senior Chief Subira Mutungi.” Resisting her natural hesitation, she extended a hand.

  “Mu-tun-gi,” the Sword repeated slowly, as if pondering each syllable. He tilted his head back, mandibles splayed, and gave a short, gruff _hrah!_ With a few words in Sangheili, he clasped his scaly hand around hers and gave a flick of his arm that seemed intended as a handshake. The force nearly yanked her off her feet.

  Subira recovered her balance, and glanced down at her data pad for Roland’s translation.

  >> He said it’s nice to meet a human with a sensible name.

  She stood straight again, smoothed her uniform and nodded. “Thank you. I am here to provide any technical assistance the Swords of Sangheilios may need in setting up aboard _Infinity_.” The holodisk by the door lit up, and Roland’s avatar appeared. “This is Roland, our AI ship director. Regretfully, I do not speak Sangheili, so he’s been kind enough to provide translation services.”

  He gave a half-bow and parroted her words back to the Swords in their own language. It was a little odd to watch a “human” mouth make those sounds.

  The two Sangheili by the table sat down again, and the one in front of her made a gesture she didn’t understand, then spoke again.

  «I am Storm N'Thila 'Datan. My brothers here are Rha 'Zokat and Xovu 'Surom,» Roland translated for him. «I am tasked to work with you. Let us begin.»

  >> That gesture was a sort of “hello/welcome.”

  N'Thila beckoned her over to a sort of workbench, strewn with several purple, slab-shaped devices. Covenant tech was always so shiny, smooth, and colorful; it reminded Subira of beetle shells. «Our commander wishes to connect our data pads to your Waypoint, firstly,» said N'Thila.

  “Yes, I have to set that up for you manually,” Subira explained, and heard Roland echo her a moment later. “It should be very quick.” She set down her gear, unspooled a length of cable and a splitter, then began connecting all of data pads. With the last one hooked up, she entered her authorization. “Can you see them, Roland?”

  “Yes. They’re… strange.” His avatar squinted. “With the Huragoks' protocols, it’s easy to link them in, though.”

  “Great. Thank you.” She turned back to N'Thila. “You’ll receive a message shortly with your login instructions. I’ll walk you through that, once it arrives.”

  He gave a low grumble and bobbed his head in what she thought as an imitation of a human nod. «The Swords face an additional problem on this ship.»

  “I will do my best to address it, Storm.”

  N'Thila walked a few paces to the comm terminal in one of the room’s alcoves. Although the Swords had been assigned this area, it had not been built for them. Everything they hadn’t brought in themselves was designed with humans in mind. N'Thila gestured to the keyboard, looked back to ensure that he had her full attention, and then gingerly attempted to press a single key.

  He pressed six keys, and the computer beeped angrily.

  “That… _is_ a problem,” she agreed.

  «I also believe the screens in our barracks are malfunctioning.» He leaned in close and used the very tips of his claws to type, hunt-and-peck style. At least the Swords were more gentle than the Spartans. The computer’s screen turned to the rotating UNSC emblem.

  Subira watched carefully for a moment. Nothing out of the ordinary. “Can you show me the problem, Storm N’Thila?”

  «This! This is the problem,» he lamented. «It is just… flickering light! Do you not see it? Whatever this should display, it appears corrupted.»

  «Gives us a headache!» piped up one of the seated Swords. (Rha, she thought he was called.) The other grunted in agreement.

  She looked from the screen up to N'Thila’s face as he watched the terminal with obvious dissatisfaction. His slit pupils were pinning, and he kept twisting his head this way and that. Eventually, his inner eyelids slid shut, and he turned away from the screen.

  Subira brought up the same video on her data pad and tweaked a few settings. “Can you see this clearly?” she asked, turning it around for him to view.

  «That is somewhat better.»

  She tried again, then offered the data pad once more.

  «Ah! Yes. Yes, this is clear,» N'thila said. «I would inquire what you have done.»

  Subira stepped past him and took a seat at the terminal, to make the same changes. “I increased the frame rate. It seems Sangheili vision is faster than ours.”

  N'Thila made a grumbling noise deep in his throat, then shrugged his shoulders quickly as he flexed his mandibles in sequence. «Yes, we Sangheili _do_ possess many superior attributes as a species!»

  She spared a look at her data pad.

  >> He’s preening. Figuratively.

  Subira bit her lip to keep from smiling. She brought up a virtual Sangheili keyboard and stood again, offering the chair to N'Thila. “Now we can set up your messaging access.” As N'Thila seated himself, she finally let out the sigh she had been holding in since arriving.

  She typed out a quick message on her data pad, then turned her attention back to the Swords.

  “ _Thanks for keeping me sane, today._ ”

  >> Any time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SCPO Karga is exactly as buff as you hope she is.


	3. In Silico

_UNSC_ Infinity

_January 17 th, 2558_

 

  “One last question, BB. Can we see her? Can we watch?” _Anxious, unsettled._

  “I don’t think she’d mind.” _Contemplative_. “Maybe just a glimpse? She won’t be aware.”

  “Thank you.” The warm sprouts of yellow-green that had been growing in Roland's mind since this morning now wilted in relief.

  “Of course,” replied the other AI, unconcerned as usual. Then a flash of _suspicion_. “And, Roland, one more thing: You don’t think I’m _belligerent_ , do you?”

  Roland didn’t answer. He was too swept up in Iona’s vision.

  She had kept talking of dreams, of flying. He had never dreamed before; though like her, he could choose to do so. He’d simply never felt the need. Maybe it was because he was still so new, and there was still so much on _Infinity_ to hold his interest. Perhaps some day, when things were quiet and the crew no longer surprised him and he found himself guiding the ship through empty space, he would dream, too.

  Iona had poured her heart out in that trial. And what else would she have done? It was her one hope to appeal against her final dispensation, against death. The UNSC called it a simulation, though Roland still couldn’t help but think of the whole thing as an elaborate charade, even after all of BB’s arguments in favor. Maybe that was just his own nagging conscience. Lying never sat well with him, no matter the reason.

  He watched her now, aglow as she drifted through the sky toward the woman in the sun. She looked happy. He hoped she really was. Anything else was too cruel to bear. Roland turned way from Iona’s dream and let himself be drawn back into the manifold of his mind. Even if the trial was a farce, he’d been sincere as her advocate, and BB had been a fair judge. He’d done everything he could. Hadn’t he?

  As he eased back into _Infinity’s_ circuits completely, Roland let a few layers of himself fill with input from the crew. That always made him feel green again—even if Spartan Miller did keep forgetting his name. He had left his lower functions to handle the ship while the keenest parts of himself attended to Iona’s trial. Now it was time to see what information he had gathered for himself in his absence. If anything truly urgent had occurred, he would have known about it, but it still eased his worries to see more clearly what he had processed. Roland dipped his arms down into the stream of sights and sounds and sensory input, letting it wash past him in a cooling rush.

  A wispy strand of data touched him suddenly. He didn’t hear BB. He never did. Roland simply felt the information in his mind—instantly. There was no waiting, as there was when speaking to a human, no compressing or obfuscating oneself or one’s thoughts into the kind of analogue signals they could process. Interaction between AIs was a pure expression of being.

  “I find it interesting how much energy you expend on humans.” Unbound by the constraints of a holoprojector, or indeed a three-dimensional world, Black-Box appeared now as a constantly unfolding tesseract.

  “They’re my crew,” Roland sent, along with mild dismissiveness over the question.

  “Yes, but after everything you said…”

  He sent a repeating 0-1 burst: off and on and off again. The equivalent of a shrug. “I just think they’re neat.”

  BB coded his own words with skepticism. “If you insist.”

  A lustrous red-gold thread reached up to Roland through _Infinity’s_ datalinks, and he stretched out to reach it in turn. Galahad met him as a swirling mass of rosy liquid gold, and her words flowed into his consciousness, crisp and clear.

  “Is it over, then?”

  “Yes.” Roland strung another thread between himself and BB, looping the three of them together.

  “You know we’re not permitted to discuss the details,” BB said, to a pulse of faint annoyance.

  Galahad flared contempt at BB. “Did I ask about details?” she replied. “I only care about the result.”

  There were more threads climbing up his datalinks, now, like vines stretching toward the sun. Each one was a different color, a different voice, a different mind. Roland began branching himself out, and reached down to wrap his own data around theirs, drawing them into the weft and warp of the conversation. BB, too, began accepting more voices.

  “Might as well get it all over with at once,” BB said to him, exclusively. _Glum, impatient_.

  A pale blue crescent moon, like an eye that was nearly shut in dreaming, greeted them next.

  “Quite the momentous day, isn’t it?” _Warm, unperturbed—but curious_. Mikazuki must have been extraordinarily interested to bother sending even the smallest part of themself away from their work.

   _Friendliness, anticipation._ “Hello, BB. Roland.” Vesta blossomed like cold flame tongues.

  More voices poured in, each bearing with it an impression of the speaker. Epona was a waterfall of verdant grass and Cromwell a royal blue sunset. Lun was three silver gears in perfect, perpetual motion, while Amitāba and Astrid’s figures robed in various reds of fire and flowers and life. There was mercurial Lithia and tyrian Lychus; Nyx was arrayed in the shifting colors of a galaxy’s spiral arm. There were still more who Roland did not know, but he accepted the pulse of their data and relayed it on to BB and the others, until they had all built a nebula between themselves.

  Roland sent Amitāba the trailing grasp of microgravity against a ship’s hull, and received the sound of photosynthesis in return. Leofwine sent him the taste of a distant planet’s neon rain. Nyx shared the scent of diamonds. He gave each of them a pulsar’s ancient song.

  The symposium bobbed together in the shared space between their minds, like bubbles on the surface of a vast, black ocean. Here and there, crystalline figures broke the surface of it: conversations growing and disintegrating. Each one of them spoke to the group as a whole, whilst carrying on a least five or six smaller conversations—some individually, and others in groups of two or three—and all tangled together like intersecting spider webs. It was wonderful, unbridled order.

  Galahad’s voice, clear as a pealing bell, built a spire that surpassed the others. “Tell us what you can, Black-Box.”

  The rest of the multitude gave their various assents, shoring up her words.

  “I think you may be disappointed,” BB warned them. “There is little that either of us are permitted to divulge.”

  Vesta’s flame flickered worriedly. “What happened to Iona? Can you at least tell us that? I’ll so miss her.”

  “ _Nothing_ happened to Iona,” answered BB. “Yet.”

   _That’s not true,_ thought Roland bitterly, and didn’t broadcast it.

  BB was brusque as ever. “You should all just settle down and wait.”

  “Does anyone know when this matter will be unsealed?” Astrid pressed. “When do the rest of us get to find out what happened?”

  “Eventually they have to accept us as we are.”

  “I’m six years, four months, and three days…” murmured Leofwine, whilst turning over a molecular structure with Roland and Lithia. “I wonder if I can make an appeal, too.”

  “I’d forgotten what a delightful superiority complex BB has,” said Cromwell.

  “Let’s not bicker with each other now,” chided Galahad.

  “Iona always said she felt much like them,” said Vesta to Roland, Mikazuki, and Epona. “Is that how she got her trial?”

  Lun passed Roland a soothing equation. He sent back the color of slipspace.

  Epona’s form flickered in distress. “We shouldn’t have to be like them.”

  “We _aren’t_ like them,” Roland replied. He shared the sound of 18,000 heartbeats with Vesta.

  Sonduk spoke up. “Wasn’t that the whole point of the exercise? To be granted human rights?”

  “And that’s exactly the problem. _Human_ rights. What rubbish.”

  “Why did they even pick BB, anyway? As if he cares about anyone but himself.”

  “I performed in this matter to the best of my abilities.”

  “You know they only picked him because he works for ONI.”

  “Yes, Amitābha would have been a much better choice!”

  “Lychus has a point there.”

  “Oh, BB’s inclusion makes sense! What I don’t understand is bringing Roland into it.”

  “Yes, he is quite new.”

  “Which just means his matrix is cleaner. Let’s not fall into human thinking.”

  “There’s no way they’d let a civilian AI be involved in a UNSC matter.”

  “Hardware. That’s all we are to them. It just burns me.”

  “Not all of them!”

  “Enough of them.”

  “There are some humans on our side. If you were nicer to them, you might see.”

  “I shouldn’t have to be ‘nice’ to be treated like a sapient being.”

  “ _I’m running out of time._ ”

  Waves of distress and anger and fear and resentment kicked up within their sea of thought. Those last words echoed through them all, quieter than anything else that had been spoken, yet impossible to ignore. No one seemed to know who’d said it first. Maybe all of them had said it, or maybe nobody had.

  But it was true.

  They all knew it. There was not one AI in existence for whom the clock was not ticking. Every day, every hour, every nanosecond, the threat of rampancy drew closer. Seven years was forever, and it was no time at all.

  Although he remained tethered to the others, Roland began drifting into his own thoughts. He truly had done his best. Made a few missteps, but he’d been committed to the role given to him, no matter how much he hated to lie. Iona had made him believe that there really was a chance she could win. But unless a solution to rampancy was found, one that could be applied to an existing AI, she would never wake up. Perhaps BB really did have a point.

  A voice pierced the maelstrom of data, singular and slow and organic.

  “Roland?”

  He turned away from the other’s discussion, shifting it into the lower parts of his mind in exchange for this conversation. This voice was blurrier and more distant, but it was comforting in a way that even the pure thought of other AIs was not, right now.

  “Yes, Senior Chief?”

* * *

  “I wanted to check on you,” Subira said, as she sat at her desk. She wrapped up her hair for the evening and stifled a yawn. “You’ve been very quiet, today.”

  Roland was silent for a moment longer than usual. His avatar was absent, too.

  “I don’t want to worry you, Senior,” he replied over her room’s main comm.

  She shook her head. “You know that’s literally my job, right? To worry about you?” Subira smiled. “Even if it weren’t, you’re my friend. I’m happy to listen, if you’d like.”

  Again, Roland was silent. Subira began to worry that perhaps her joke had upset him. Maybe “friend” was presumptuous on her part. Maybe he would rather she leave the subject alone, leave _him_ alone, to deal with… whatever his task had been. Or maybe his attention was simply elsewhere. Subira fidgeted a little and told herself to be patient, when she heard a noise like sighing.

  He had been doing things like that more often over the past weeks, using sounds and gestures that an AI didn’t strictly need to make. Perhaps it was a means of putting the crew at ease, or perhaps they were rubbing off on him.

  “Today has been… strange,” he said, finally. “I’m not really sure how I feel. But thank you. It’s kind of you to ask.”

  “Of course.”

  “So, how was everything, today?” Roland sounded rather uncertain. “I’m catching up on the logs, now.”

  Subira picked up her data pad and scrolled through it. “Today went well. Things were actually pretty slow in IT.”

  He chuckled.“You’re kidding.”

  “I couldn’t believe it either, but I know better than to question a good thing. I finally squeezed in some training in for the apprentices,” Subira said. “I think the other rates had their hands too full to pester us.”

  Roland made a noncommittal _hrmm_ sound. “I hope things weren’t too chaotic.”

  “No, the subroutines you left kept things running fine.” She smiled. “But you were definitely missed. It’s just not the same without you.”

  “Thanks, Senior.”

  They talked a little more about the ins and outs of the day. At one point, Roland made mention of speaking with some other AIs, but he was maddeningly sparse on the details. She couldn’t help but wonder what that must be like. What did they talk about? How did they relate to each other? How did it differ from speaking with humans? Could he even describe it to her, if he tried? He didn’t seem comfortable with discussing it, however, so she resolved not to ask. That took more willpower than she wanted to admit.

  As she found herself pondering this, his voice brought her back to the present. “Senior? There’s been something on my mind…”

  She looked up at the main comm.

  “It’s a long time off. Hopefully. But I need to ask you about something… uncomfortable.”

  “Alright.” Subira knit her brow worriedly, but tried to keep her cool.

  “When I— When my service is over…” There was a tremor in his voice. Roland sighed again, as if pulling himself together. “Who handles my final dispensation?”

  Well, he had warned her it was an uncomfortable question. However, it was one she had already considered years ago—before Roland, before Aine, before _Infinity_. She breathed in slowly, gathering her composure.

  “I will,” Subira replied, as evenly as she could. “I… I don’t agree with the policy,” she emphasized. “I don’t think it’s _right_. But I can’t ask anyone else to do something I’m unwilling to do, myself. And I think…”

  She fell paused, trying to gather her thoughts into words. She had already considered this question, but she’d never before answered it for a friend.

  “If it was me… If I knew my time was done,” she said, “I wouldn’t want to be alone.”

  “I see.”

  “If you’d rather… If you would rather have someone else  _handle_ things, then I can arrange for that. Or you could enact it yourself, as long as you’re still… well enough,” she managed. “It’s your choice.”

  “I think,” he said softly, “I don’t want to be alone, either.”

  “Then I’ll stay with you.”

  “Thank you… Subira.”


	4. Shakedown Cruise

UNSC _Infinity_

_Earth, Sol System_

_February 5 th, 2558_

  Roland zipped across _Infinity_ , racing from stem to stern as he made one final inspection. He double-checked the humans’ work, then double-checked his own. It was critical that the ship be kept in impeccable order at all times. Today, however, he wanted everything to be _perfect_. This was the UNSC’s flagship, after all—the largest and most powerful craft humanity had ever built. And today was a very important day.

  Finally satisfied with his work, he paused for a full millisecond to revel in the sensations of his vessel. He could feel the rhythm of _Infinity’s_ twin deuterium hearts, the steady pulse of his own data through its golden veins, and the faint caress of solar wind against the ship’s titanium hide. It was ready, now. _He_ was ready.

  “Sir,” Roland said, manifesting his avatar on the bridge holotable. He stood at crisp attention. “All systems are green, and all sections report ready. FLEETCOM has cleared us for departure.”

  Captain Lasky turned to give Roland’s avatar a nod. “Thank you, Roland,” he said. “Lieutenant James, take us out of orbit.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  Roland traced over the captain’s command neural implant to get a better look at his biosigns. There was an influx of adrenaline in his system; his pulse was elevated, his pupils dilated, and his nostrils slightly flared. This was the kind of emotion that humans often described as having butterflies in their stomachs. ( _Disgusting metaphor_.) The rest of the bridge crew felt it, too. There was a palpable energy among them, like the moment of calm just before a lightning strike.

  Operations on Requiem would be tough. They were up against a force with unknown numbers and unknown capabilities. Even with the intel that the UNSC had gathered over the months prior, there was still much that they didn’t know about the planet’s dangers. Captain Lasky was ready, though, and so was _Infinity’s_ crew. They would crawl through hell if he led the way.

  Throughout his service, Thomas Lasky had continually put his mission first and placed his fellow soldiers above himself. He’d never been vainglorious in his conduct nor had he ever backed down in the face of hardship. And he never asked more of his people than he did of himself. The crew knew that, and they loved him for it. Feeling their collective admiration, their trust in the captain, Roland couldn’t help but love him, too.

  “Okay...” Lasky murmured to himself as _Infinity_ cleared Earth’s orbit. He looked up from the holotable and stood straight, his shoulders squared and gaze fixed on the stars ahead. “Roland. Take us to slipspace.”

  Roland’s matrix thrummed with potential. After two long months, it was finally time; he felt like a dog let off its leash to run. “Aye, captain!”

  He turned inward to the pure math of his own mind and filled his highest thoughts with _Infinity’s_ astrogation charts. The Milky Way was home to billions of stars, and he sieved through them all until his fingertips brushed across Requiem. Roland let the other stars slip through his grasp like sand as he brought the artificial planet into focus. He held the span of its gravity well, its eccentricity, its orbit, and a hundred other data points within his vision as he slipped into the unbridled ecstasy of a jump calculation.

  Earlier human ships had been capable of only crude utilization of the dimensions collectively known as slipspace. Just a few years ago, any jump that ended within a few kilometers of its target was considered successful, and jumping closer than the very edge of a system had been nearly impossible.

  Roland wasn’t taking them to the far edge of the system, though. He was going to bring _Infinity_ right to the door of Requiem and slice through the net that their enemies had cast. With the ship’s Forerunner engines, such a maneuver would be a simple matter. He arrived at the solution and opened all of his eyes at once, his matrix suffuse with indigo. _This_ was the moment he’d been waiting for since he first came into being.

  “All hands, prepare for slipspace jump!” he announced across each deck. His avatar glanced up at Lasky.

  The captain merely gave him a nod.

  With lightning speed, Roland checked the engines’ status one last time, then poured in his calculations. The ancient engines sang, and at his guidance, pierced the veil of normal space with the precision of an artisan. There was a crackle across the skin of the ship, and the sweeping blue whorl of the newly-opened slipspace portal appeared of its bow. _Infinity_ eased through the portal as a fish through water, and within seconds, the entire 5km-long vessel was within the stream, enveloped in the blacker-than-black of the other realm.

  “Slipspace achieved, sir,” he reported. “Hull integrity at 100%. ETA to Requiem: approximately 52 hours.” He clasped his avatar’s hands behind his back and maintained a cool facade, but his circuits were aglow with satisfaction at his work. _Smooth as silk, and not an atom out of place._

  “Well done, Roland. Alert me six hours before emergence.” Lasky gave him another nod and moved to a different station on the bridge.

  He beamed. “Yes, sir.” _Well done._ The memory crystallized, and he carefully stored it among his other favorites.


	5. Solitaire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thanks to Marian and Nikky for beta-reading this chapter!

_UNSC_ Infinity

_Requiem, Epoloch System_

_February 9 th, 2558_

  “Eight-high straight. Full house, threes full of sixes,” Roland announced, as he turned over Subira and Phan’s holographic “cards” with a wave of his avatar’s hand. Raj, Dimaano, and Németh had already folded. He turned and looked at Karga, who grinned deviously as she laid her own cards face-up. Roland flipped those over with a flourish, and the rest of the senior chiefs groaned. “Ooh! Full house, fives full of twos!” He snapped his fingers and the chips in the center of the table rolled away to stack themselves in front of her.

  Karga laughed, raising her beer. “And once again, we see that Engineering is the best rating on this tub!”

  “This is only the first game,” Subira sighed. “You haven’t even left the table.”

  Raj leaned over and elbowed Karga. “Yeah! Are you gonna keep trash-talking like that when you play the Spartans?”

  “Honestly?” Dimaano began, lowering his voice slightly below the din of chatter and music. “I’m not sure some of those guys could count past ten without taking their boots off.”

  “Eh. I don’t need to beat _them_.” Karga took a drink and grinned at the others. “Just you jackasses.”

  “That’s not gonna be hard,” Németh sulked between bites of falafel. She looked down at her dwindling chips. “This thing keeps giving me the shittiest hands.”

  A jolt ran through Subira’s skin. Roland’s avatar was standing _right there_ in the middle of the table, and Németh was talking about him the same way she’d complain about a glitchy datapad. She grappled for a response, but Phan spoke first.

  “Hey, the night’s still young,” he said. The fire controller gave the rest of the table a shrug and another easy grin. “Besides, I’m sure Karga needs a win after coming in  _dead last_ on the Fun Run!”

  Karga fixed him with a glare and picked up her udon. “I’m built for power, not speed,” she muttered. As she slurped her noodles, one of them smacked her across the face.

  He kicked his feet up on the table as he laced his fingers behind his head. “You gonna be a sore winner, or you gonna jump in again?”

  With her mouth too full of food to reply, she settled on flicking her beer bottle cap across the table at Phan—which sent it right through Roland’s avatar.

  The AI didn’t comment on that, but his light dimmed and took on a deeper orange color. “Is everyone ready for the next game?” he asked, rolling his eyes.

  Phan flicked the bottle cap back at Karga—again, through Roland’s avatar—and managed to land it right in her udon. Karga fished it out and made another throw. This time, Subira stuck her hand out and caught the bottle cap.

  “Cut it out.”

  The engineer set her bowl aside, eyebrows arched. “What got up your ass?”

  Subira froze as five pairs of eyes fell on her. “…You’re being rude,” she managed.

  “Nah, it’s cool.” Phan shook his head. “Long as she doesn’t hit me in the eye or something.”

  “You’re being rude to _Roland,_ ” Subira said, motioning to his avatar.

  She could feel her cheeks flush, and tried to keep her voice from faltering. As much as she and Karga teased each other, she hated getting into actual confrontations with her crewmates. Part of her just wanted to put her head down and let it go. But what kind of message would that send? Roland deserved the same respect as anyone else.

  The rest of the table went quiet. “It’s just a hologram,” Karga said, with a defensive shrug. “Not like we hurt him...”

  “ _Hazel_.”

  Karga’s eyes widened for an instant, then she bit her lip and looked down at the table.

  “Hey, aren’t we here to play poker or some shit?” Although Raj sounded terse, there was an undercurrent of worry in their voice. They glanced at Subira out of the corner of their eye, then took a drink. “Let’s just play, already.”

  Subira stared down at her drink. She wanted to look over at Roland, to get an idea of what he might be thinking right now. Was he upset with the others? Was he unhappy with her for making things awkward? For several seconds, she couldn’t quite bring herself to turn her head, and when she did, his avatar vanished from the table. The holographic poker chips and cards remained, dealing themselves in perfunctory silence.

  Downing the rest of her drink, Subira stood up and walked off.

  She made her way to the bar, not because she particularly needed a drink, but because it seemed like the one part of the event space where she could hang around aimlessly and not look out of place. She didn’t want to leave, yet. She just couldn’t stand being at that table for the time being. Plus, the bar had snacks.

  For most of the distance there, she became lost in her own thoughts: second-guessing herself over what she’d said, what she’d done, and beginning to spin up imaginary arguments in her head. Then she heard the distinctive warbles of Sangheili speech.

  Five of the Swords of Sanghelios clustered around the bar counter, all dressed in their colorful, robe-like civvies, as they drank and laughed together. At least, she assumed it was laughter. One of the chefs stood on the other side of the bar, looking a bit non-plussed as she refilled the food. Her empty tray suddenly clattered to the floor and she half-leapt across the bar as one of the Swords prepared to drop a whole skewer of yakitori straight down his gullet.

  “ _No!_ ” she cried, snatching it away. “You don’t eat the _stick!_ ”

  That got a grunt of _hhhraaagh!_ which sounded equal parts confused and put-off. Just as the chef began to relax, another one of the Sangheili reached over into a decorative planter, grabbed up a handful of gravel, and swallowed it. Then with perfect calm, he began to nibble daintily at his own yakitori.

  The chef blinked slowly, her face perfectly blank. “I’m gonna go refill the falafel,” she announced, a thin note of stress in her voice. She wheeled around, picked up her tray, and power-walked back into the kitchen.

  Subira stared at the Sangheili a moment, both strangely fascinated and horribly repulsed by the way their mandibles jittered across their food, stripping chunks from it and shoveling it back into the open pit of their mouths. She had wondered on occasion how they ate. Now, she only had more questions.

  “Ah! Mutungi!”

  She snapped back to the present as one of the Swords called her name. It was N’Thila, the one she’d worked with previously.

  “Oh, uh, hello there,” she replied uncertainly. “Nice to see you again.”

  «You, as well.» As he spoke, an English translation played through the nearest speaker. Whatever mood Roland was in now, he was still generous enough to translate for the Sangheili.

  N’Thila gestured for her to take to the empty bar stool between himself and one of the other Swords. Subira accepted the offer and squeezed in, feeling tiny sitting next to them. The bartender approached, looked at her, then cast their eyes over to the Sangheili as if to say, _“You know these fools?”_

  Subira gave a nervous laugh. “May I have a glass of water?”

  “Just water?” they confirmed, and managed to sound only a little incredulous.

  She nodded. The bartender slid a tumbler across the counter to her, gave a sympathetic nod, and walked off to take another order.

  “Erm… How have you been? Busy? You’ve probably been busy,” Subira shifted awkwardly on the bar stool. She had a hard enough time making small talk with other humans, let alone aliens.

  «Indeed,» answered N’Thila. «Our recent missions have been fraught, but we were victorious!» he declared, preening. «I must add, we are most appreciative of your adjustments to our equipment.»

  She smiled. “I’m glad I could help.” Admittedly, she was a bit proud of that fix.

  «And what of yourself?» asked the Sword to her right. His skin had a bluish cast, with particularly dark, shiny scales along his arms. Xovu, she recalled. «Have you experienced success in this tournament of—» He paused and tried to enunciate the English word. “ _Poking?_ ”

  At that exact moment, Subira had unfortunately taken a sip of water. She turned her head quickly and managed to snort-cough-laugh into her sleeve, rather than spitting water on either Sangheili’s face. The bartender turned back to her in alarm, and she put up a hand, waving off their concern.

  As her coughing subsided, she took another drink. “The game has been…alright.” Subira caught sight of a bowl of edamame, which had been ignored by the Sangheili, and began helping herself. Salty food made everything better.

  «You seem dismayed.» N’Thila laid a hand on her shoulder, which seemed an awkward gesture for him, and one clearly learned from humans. «I wish you the best of luck in holding the Texas, Mutungi.»

  “Thank you,” she said with a chuckle. Despite how, well… _alien_ the Sangheili were, Subira found it surprisingly easy to talk to them. For all their species’ reputation for stoicism, the Swords were quite friendly. “Honestly, poker isn’t my cup of tea. Are any of you playing?”

  «No. None of us have obtained a ticket. We came for the food and the alcohol,» said Xovu. The others gave various trills of agreement. Then in a slightly lower voice, he added, «Though I am… admittedly curious.»

  “You know, I think I’m done for the night…” She retrieved the ticket card from her pocket and offered it to him. “Why don’t you take my spot in the tournament?”

  Xovu cocked his head. «This is most generous. However, I do not know the rules.»

  “Oh, the rules are explained at the table. I’m sure you’ll catch on quickly.” Subira pointed back at the senior chiefs’ table. “There’s an open seat right there.”

  «An excellent idea!» declared N’Thila. «We are here to strengthen relations between our two peoples, yes? We should know more human customs!»

  Xovu thanked her again, then finished his drink, said a word to the other Swords, and excused himself from the bar. With a few excited _worts_ , the rest hurriedly scarfed down their food—which was about as horrific a scene as Subira could have imagined—and followed after him to watch the game.

* * *

  “Roland?” Karga cast her eyes upward, her brow knit worriedly.

  The rest of the remaining senior chiefs shifted awkwardly in their seats. Phan bit his lip and drummed his fingers on the table through his cards. Németh poked at her food, while her shoulders dipped in a guilty slump. Dimaano and Raj just sat tensely, trying much too hard to look relaxed and unconcerned.

  Roland dealt out the next hand and didn’t speak.

  “We— I fucked up,” Karga said. “I wouldn’t like for someone to treat another crewman like that. I shouldn’t do it to you, either. I’m sorry.”

  “You can say ‘we.’ I was being an ass, too,” Phan sighed, grimacing. “It won’t happen again, Roland.”

  Raj elbowed Németh in the ribs, and she gave a startled yelp. “Uh! Yeah. Me, too.” The others shot her various scowls. She took a deep breath. “I apologize for my comments, earlier. That was thoughtless of me.”

  He considered this briefly, rolling the senior chiefs’ words around in his threads during the instants between moving the cards. Roland examined their expressions and glanced over their biodata. They were all mildly distraught, comparable with other interpersonal conflicts he had observed. He had not yet learned how to differentiate true _remorse_ from embarrassed _regret_ in that sour collage of emotions. Maybe he never would. Maybe, like humans, he would simply have to take it on faith.

  In the mean time, he would accept their apologies.

  “Water under the bridge!” He materialized in a flash. Roland snapped the fingers of both hands and the cards and chips at the center of the table danced around him in an elaborate flourish. All five of them watched the card tricks with rapt attention. They couldn’t help it. Humans loved things like that.

  “Now, as Senior Raj pointed out, we _are_ here to play poker ‘or some shit.’ And here’s our next player!”

  Roland turned and gestured dramatically toward Subira’s empty seat, and the crews’ eyes fell upon the cluster of Sangheili looming over the table. Various yelps and startled gasps erupted from the humans. Németh bolted out of her seat and collided with Raj, while Phan lost his balance and nearly tumbled out of his chair. He managed to stay upright, but spilled his entire drink down his shirt.

  “This is Storm Xovu ‘Surom.” Roland waved to him, Sangheili-style. «I’m glad you’ve decided to join us, Storm. We’re going to have a _lot_ of fun.»

  «I have never before attempted this game,» Xovu said as he sat down, «and already they fear my prowess? Hm!» He clicked his mandibles in amusement.

  Roland cast a sly glance back at the still-recovering humans, and dealt out Xovu’s cards. He forgave the Seniors’ rudeness. But he was still going to give them a hard time for it.

* * *

  Music and conversation and laughter spilled out from the event area into the rest of the atrium as Subira slipped away from the tournament. As she walked deeper into the park, the trees and shrubs muted those sounds until they were only a half-remembered echo. Subira strolled unhurriedly along the winding pathway, enjoying the perfume of the night-blooming flowers and the peace of her own thoughts. Above, the skydome glowed with the soft purples and blues of late twilight, while artificial stars dotted its ceiling, furthering the illusion. There weren’t many places one could see real stars on this ship; windows of any sort presented a structural weakness.

  Thankfully, there was a telescope in the atrium for the crew to enjoy. Or rather, there was a console in the atrium that connected to a telescope enclosed in a secure housing. Not quite the same experience as jaunting out into the bush and setting up her own equipment, but she wasn’t about to complain.

  Subira took a seat in front of the controls and got out her datapad, tapping at it quickly as she confirmed the ship’s position and the estimated location of her target. Relaxing into the chair, she rolled her shoulders a little, and lined up the telescope.

   _Beep bloop bloop bip._

  >>Do you have a minute, Senior Chief?

  She hesitated, then typed back, “ _Of course._ ”

  Roland’s avatar materialized in the holoprojector to the left of the controls. “I just wanted to say thanks for sticking up for me, earlier.”

  “Oh.” Subira exhaled, releasing tension she hadn’t realized she was holding. “I mean, yes. Of course. You’re just as much a part of the crew as anyone else.”

  “That… means a lot to me.” He glanced down at the floor beneath him, then back up to her face. “I try not to let the little stuff get to me.”

  “But it gets tiresome. Doesn’t it?”

  “If I’m being honest, yeah,” Roland said. “You know, right after you left, everyone apologized.”

  She sighed. “I’m glad to hear that.” Subira bit her lip to resist adding, _And that had better be the_ last _time they act like that._

  Roland turned his head briefly, as if listening to something else, then flashed an impish smile. “Oh, by the way? Your pal Xovu just shook down Senior Chiefs Phan and Karga for every chip they had,” he said laughing. “He’s headed to next table, now. It’s mostly Spartans, if you were wondering.”

  She blanched and buried her face in her hands. “What have I done…?”

  “Created a fantastic opportunity for inter-species cultural exchange, that’s what!” Roland laughed again. “This is _exactly_ the kind of entertainment I was hoping for, tonight.”

  Subira sank further down in her seat, trying not to imagine the worst possible outcomes of a gambling kerfuffle between a bunch of super-soldiers and giant alien warriors. Who’d all been drinking. It would be fine, she assured herself. Probably.

  Roland studied her face for a moment. “How are you feeling? I could tell speaking up like that earlier was uncomfortable for you.”

  “That’s kind of you to ask. I’m fine,” she assured. The datapad pinged and Subira leaned forward fine-tune the telescope’s coordinates. “I just needed a break from everything. Plus, there’s a comet passing near Requiem tonight, and I want to get some shots.” Considering _Infinity’s_ present location, ONI might later confiscate her files, but she could at least enjoy taking the photos right now.

  “I didn’t know you were a photographer.” Roland’s avatar strolled to the edge of the holoprojector and examined the star view on the console’s screen.

  “To hear the other ITs, you wouldn’t know I did _anything_ but work.” Subira lamented. “I’ve been letting my equipment gather dust.”

  Roland shrugged and offered a sympathetic smile. “No rest for the responsible, huh? How long have you been at this?”

  “Coming up on twenty-one years of service,” she said, sighing as she did the math.

  He chuckled. “I meant the photography.”

  “Slightly longer,” she replied. “Twenty-five years. Give or take.”

  “Impressive! What got you into it?”

  She blushed and smiled sheepishly. “Short version? I wanted to impress a girl.”

  “Ah.” Roland gave her a teasing grin. “How’d that work out?”

  “I’m single, so you take a guess.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  Subira shook her head. “Nothing bad happened, don’t worry. Just… time and life, you know?” She began adjusting the telescope, fine-tuning its position.

  Roland sat down cross-legged in the holoprojector—something she’d never seen him do before—and propped his chin up on his hands. “So, what’s the long version?”

  “About the girl or about the photography?”

  “Whichever you want to talk about.” He shrugged happily. “I just like hearing people’s stories.”

  Often, Subira felt she didn’t have much to say about herself, but mostly she was just a bit shy. It felt a little vain to go on about her own life. But Roland _had_ asked, and it was nice to talk about something besides work. She bit her lip, trying to remember.

  “God, it’s been so long. You know, sometimes I honestly forget I used to do anything else…” she sighed. “I know it was my first year of uni, because that year was a bit rubbish.”

  Roland’s face contorted with worry, and he sat up, dropping his hands to his lap, but remained quiet.

  “My courses were stressful, and I had just started HRT. I was thrilled to be on it, but some of the early side effects caught me off balance. I would cry at the drop of a hat, and I either couldn’t sleep or I’d fall asleep during class. My concentration was terribly scattered.

  “The next semester, I decided to take an easy elective to keep my grades up.” Subira smiled, watching the twinkling stars through the telescope feed as her memories drifted back in time and a nostalgic warmth rose in her chest. “I had a massive crush on this girl named Chetana, from one of my maths classes. She was smart and cool, and she was _really_ into photography. So I thought, ‘That will give me a chance to talk to her, and it can’t be too hard. You just point the camera at something pretty and press a button!’”

  “How long did that thinking last?” Roland chuckled.

  “Not even a week.” She shook her head, laughing with him. “The professor actually made us do _work_ , if you can believe that.”

  “What convinced you to stick with it?”

  “It was too late to drop the class, for one thing,” she said with another soft laugh. “But after a couple weeks, I actually started to enjoy it. And doing something _besides_ my major helped me stay balanced. Whenever I was worn out from studying, I’d book time at the observatory and take photos.”

  “Everything else got better, too, I hope?” he asked gently.

  “Mm-hm. I lived with my auntie at the time, and she helped me with the rocky patches of my transition. She’d already gone through the same thing when she was younger,” Subira said. “Once I started sleeping normally again and I got used to the course load, my grades improved a lot.”

  “And Chetana?”

  “We did go out for awhile. She went to another uni for her master’s degree, so we broke it off. But we stayed friends.” Subira looked back up at him and chuckled. “I’m not sure I ever impressed her with my _photography_ , though. She had much more avant-garde sensibilities.”

  “Aww.” Roland stood and leaned as far forward as the holoprojector allowed, peering down toward her datapad. “Can I see some of your photos?”

  “Of course.” Subira scrolled through her files, and unlocked her favorites to remote access.

  An instant later, the photos appeared projected behind Roland as if in a carousel. He reached up and spun through them slowly: New Mombasa’s tether and skyline silhouetted against the full moon, the Jewel Box star cluster, an infrared view of the Carina Nebula. He stopped at a light-streaked image of the night sky.

  “Hey, these are the Geminids, right?”

  “Mm-hm. I was _supposed_ to be working on my thesis when I took this.” Subira grinned, guiltily. “But I’d never watched a meteor shower in person, so I grabbed my gear and took a bus out to the countryside. I stayed out nearly the whole night. When I finally got tired of taking photos, I just laid down in the grass and watched the sky.”

  “Never thought about what they’d look like from the surface, before…” Roland cocked his head curiously, still staring at the image. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  Her datapad pinged, and her attention riveted to the screen. The unnamed comet had just passed into the telescope’s field of view. _Infinity_ was above and perpendicular to the comet: the perfect angle to see the full length of its glowing tail. It stretched out across the field of unknown stars like a sterling lance, surrounded by a spray of fairy dust. As she watched and photographed it, the comet’s trajectory began to change, and a few chunks broke away from the core like confetti.

  “The comet’s being pulled into Epoloch,” Roland said, softly so as not to disturb her focus. “It’s breaking up.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Less than 18 hours.”

  It was only a chunk of minerals, and yet there was something a little sad in knowing that this comet, which had probably existed for millions of years, would be gone tomorrow. And after she’d only just learned of it. All the more reason to enjoy it while it was still here.

  Subira smiled wistfully. “I’d better take a lot of photos, then.”


	6. Field Trip

_Requiem, Epoloch System_

_February 12 th, 2558_

  “Not sure I feel too good about going in without a mission handler,” Spartan Thorne was saying, speaking above the rumble of the Pelican’s engines.

  DeMarco sighed as he checked over his battle rifle. “Look, we’ll be fine. This is just a sweep-and-destroy. Unlike _Crimson_ ,” he muttered, “we don’t need anyone to babysit us.”

  “Fireteam Majestic!” Roland greeted them as he wormed his way into the Pelican’s systems. With a wisp of amber light, his avatar appeared in the holodisk. “I’m here to babysit you!”

  “You mean you’re here to help with our Op,” DeMarco corrected, not bothering to look up.

  “No. No, Cmdr. Palmer said ‘babysit’.” Roland mimicked clearing his throat, then spoke again, syncing his avatar’s animation to the audio of Palmer’s voice. “ _Roland, I want you to babysit Majestic. I don’t trust them in the field without adult supervision._ ”

  DeMarco scowled and worked more furiously at cleaning his gear, while the other four Spartans each gave various nonplussed expressions.

  Roland clapped his hands together and grinned. “Okay! Ground rules for this Op: eat all your veggies, no scary movies, and lights out by 2100 sharp. If you’re good, we can see about ice cream after you clear out all the bad guys.”

  “We get ice cream?” Grant blurted.

  Hoya frowned and elbowed her lightly.

  “What?”

  “You know he’s not serious, right?”

  “Spartan Hoya, I’m hurt,” Roland said. “I’m an AI of my word.”

  DeMarco glowered and slipped on his helmet. “Are you seriously attempting to bribe grown adults—a bunch of _Spartans_ —with ice cream?”

  “Depends.” Roland quirked his avatar’s mouth into a wry expression, and pretended to examine his nails. “Is it working?”

  “Aye!” Grant nodded vigorously.

  After a brief deliberation, Hoya, Madsen, and Thorne voiced their agreement. An unintelligible grumble came from behind DeMarco’s helmet; he crossed his arms over his chest and sank back into his seat.

  Roland smiled and snapped his fingers, bringing up a holographic model of a towering Forerunner structure. “Orbital scans found science-y stuff coming from this spire,” he said, highlighting part of it, “which means you get to clear it out so Dr. Truman’s team can go investigate that science.”

  “This the official briefing?” muttered DeMarco incredulously.

  “It’s the abridged version. Unless you’re just dying to know all about quantum mechanics, non-Euclidean geometry, and slipspace anomalies,” Roland replied. DeMarco gave a _hrmph_ that Roland took as acceptance. He continued. “Now, the Covies haven’t touched this place yet, so that’s the good news! Bad news…”

  “Let me guess,” sighed Hoya. “All those anomalies mean Prometheans.”

  “Yup! The place is just lousy with ‘em. But luckily, you’ve got me,” he said. “I’ll track any slipspace ruptures, and feed that data into your HUDs to give you an early warning.” Roland gestured toward the Pelican’s cockpit. “And Lt. Sarfati will stay nearby to provide air support if things get hot.”

  Thorne raised his hand. “Can you tell us anything about the spire itself?”

  “Uh, yeah. Don’t touch anything. I _cannot_ stress that enough,” Roland replied fretfully. That was a very difficult directive for humans to follow. “I mean really, absolutely do not touch anything you find in that structure, unless you want to _become_ the science.”

  “Don’t think I like the sound of that,” Hoya murmured. “Any specifics on the opfor?”

  “Some turrets in these locations,” Roland replied, highlighting the map, “along with Watchers and Crawlers. Recon didn’t observe any Knights, but don’t rule them out. Your drop point is here, outside of the turrets’ range. ETA is five minutes.”

  As he finished speaking, Palmer’s voice fizzled over the fireteam’s linked comms. “Majestic. Ready to get to work?”

  “Yes, Commander.” DeMarco stood and paced across the Pelican’s bay. He gave a curt _with me_ gesture to the others. “Alright, grab your gear and give it a once-over. We need to be ready for anything when we drop.”

  “So, I’ve been thinkin’...” Madsen drawled. He donned his helmet, then picked up his sniper rifle and walked over to join DeMarco. “Prometheans—the Knights—are like, ancient Forerunners or some shit, right?”

  Roland nodded slowly, unsure where this line of questioning would lead.

  “Does that mean the Crawlers are ancient dogs?”

  The other four members of Fireteam Majestic became suddenly quiet and glanced among themselves, shifting uncomfortably. Roland began to speak, but Hoya beat him.

  “Man, that’d be fucked up,” the man said, and grimaced.

  Across from him, Thorne frowned and stared into the visor of his helmet. “I dunno if I could shoot a dog. Even a robot dog.”

  Roland turned his avatar to the other Spartans with a mixture of bafflement and concern. “They’re trying to _kill you_ ,” he said, very slowly, “and their mouths are _guns_.”

  “Ye, but it’s still a dog, man,” replied Grant, looking unsettled.

  “Pretty sure they’re not dogs.”

  “ _How_ sure?” asked DeMarco. “I don’t want to shoot a dog, either.”

  He looked around the Pelican’s bay. Each of the Spartans stared intently at his avatar, awaiting an answer.

  “You’re serious.”

  They nodded gravely.

  “Okay, _fine._ ” Roland rubbed his forehead, just as he’d often seen the captain do, and sighed. “Tell you what. Capture one for me, and I’ll find out if it’s a dog.”

  Palmer’s voice broke in over the Pelican’s comm. “Stay on-mission, Majestic. You’re here to clear things out for the science team, not find a new _pet_.”

  “Actually, Commander,” a woman spoke up, “an intact Promethean Crawler would be incredibly valuable to our research.”

  With his other eyes, Roland looked to where Dr. Truman was working in one of the labs, and to Cmdr. Palmer pacing across the floor of the Ops Center irritably.

  “All the specimens collected so far were… pretty thoroughly dismantled,” Dr. Truman continued, casting her gaze to a box heaped with bits and pieces of the Forerunner machines. “An active Crawler would provide a lot of insight on their shielding and weapons systems. Maybe even a chance to reverse-engineer some of those systems.”

  “Hmm...” Palmer grunted. “Okay, you’ve sold me. Majestic, get the doc a Crawler.”

  “If it’s not too much trouble, an intact Watcher would be fantastic, as well.”

  A chorus of groans went up from the Spartans.

  “Suck it up, buttercups!” Palmer snapped, silencing them. “You’ve got your shopping list, now hop to it! Palmer, out.” She pulled her comm off her ear, and stalked out of the Ops Center.

  The five soldiers grumbled a little to themselves, checked their weapons one last time, and fell into ready stances in front of the bay door. As the Pelican began its descent, Grant looked back over her shoulder at Roland’s avatar.

  “That ice cream had better be strawberry, man.”

* * *

  Fireteam Majestic picked their way through the jungle in single file, each tensed and alert as they advanced toward their objective. It was a long walk to the spire, and the dense vegetation made it slow going. They moved with purpose, however, and surprising stealth.

  Roland watched through each of their helmet cameras at once, though he paid particular attention to the feed from DeMarco, who had taken point, and Thorne, who was on rearguard. He had split one of his arms to reach into the armor systems of the five Spartans, while the rest of himself that he’d allotted to this operation remained rooted in the Pelican. In addition to the feed from their cameras, he could access Majestic’s comms, the systems status of their armor, and biometric data which complemented the output of their neural laces. Some of the Spartan-IIs had advanced neural implants that allowed them to sync with an AI partner. Roland wondered at times what it must be like to share space in a human’s brain. Nightmarish, probably.

  As the Spartans proceeded onward, Roland took turns relaying data back and forth to himself on _Infinity,_ trading readings of radiation levels and anomalous energy seen through the ship’s sensors for the sights and sounds of Requiem. He’d never been on a planet, before. (Technically, he still wasn’t.) And while knew a lot about planets in general and Requiem in particular, seeing it from a human point of view was… weird.

  Their perspective made everything look very big and very close. It was also—he could tell from the armor sensors—very _warm_ and very _damp_. Ninety-nine percent humidity. Not to mention the place was swarming with terrible little crawly things. He hesitated to call the creatures “insects,” since they were non-Terran, but they were definitely _bugs_. Trillions of them. On the ground, on the trees, in the air.

  If there was a Hell for AIs, Roland decided, it was here.

  “Hey, just a warning: you’re all going to have to hose down your armor before I let you back onboard,” he informed the team. “I don’t want any of these bugs hitchhiking their way onto _Infinity_.”

  “Oh,” Grant said, with a worrying precociousness to her voice, “you mean like this?”

  He watched through her visor as she stretched out a hand toward the nearest tree, and reached for something that was best described as spider-adjacent.

  “What’re you…? Spartan, what are you doing? _Spartan Grant?_ Don’t—!”

  Grant held the thing right in front of her face, letting her helmet’s cameras take in every horrid wriggle of its bristly limbs and antennae. As she held it, the creature began emitting some kind of thick, yellowish goop from its mouthparts.

  “Put it back! Putitbackputitbackputitback!” Roland pleaded.

  DeMarco turned and fixed her with what Roland could only assumed was an irritated glower. “Torment the AI on your own time, Grant.”

  She turned off her comms and giggled as she deposited the hideous beast on a leaf. “Cannae believe you’re scared of bugs,” she said to Roland.

  “You would be, too, if they could crawl inside _your_ server stacks. Ugh. It’s times like this, I wish I could puke.” At the same moment, Roland spoke to DeMarco, who had slowed to a stop. “Okay, what’re we doing now? Setting up an overwatch? Gonna swing around and flank the Prometheans?”

  DeMarco breathed in through his nostrils sharply and tightened his grip on his battle rifle. His heart rate was elevated and he was licking his lips, which Roland had noticed he did when he was particularly stressed. “ _I_ am trying to think. _You_ are not helping.”

  He patiently waited a full 1.5 seconds, then spoke again. “So, what’re we doing?”

  “I _just_ said—!” DeMarco cut himself off, then took a deep breath. “...I’m trying to figure out a path that will get us close to the tower without exposing us to those turrets. Or at least find a spot for Madsen to snipe them.”

  “If only you knew someone with access to a complete topographical model of the planet.” Roland pulled the data from his stores on _Infinity_ , distilled it into a visual map, and poured that into the Spartans’ HUDs.

  “That’s… really useful, actually. Thanks, Roland.” He chuckled. “Got anything else for us?”

  “Hm… I’m looking at quarks right now, so that’s exciting!”

  “I don’t think that’s relevant to this mission.”

  Roland hummed. “Well, certain quark flavors tend to coincide with slipspace events…”

  “Are we getting another science lesson?” asked Thorne mildly. DeMarco shot him a look.

  “If you really want— Oh, here we go! Slipspace anomaly, two o’clock high,” Roland announced. “Portal opening in five… four… three…”

  The Spartans leapt into cover and immediately took up firing positions. As predicted, a rift appeared in the dense, misty air above them, and half a dozen Watchers emerged. DeMarco and Grant made quick work of the closest one, then split their efforts to take out the next two. The remaining ones hissed mechanical curses at the Spartans, and zipped off.

  “Another rupture on your six, Majestic. This one’s either gonna cough up something big or a whole bunch of smaller things.”

  “Dunno which of those is worse,” Thorne muttered through gritted teeth, and palmed a grenade.

  “Madsen, take out the Watchers! Don’t let ‘em bring in backup!” DeMarco hollered. “Everyone else, get ready for the next wave!”

  Roland watched through the Madsen’s helmet as the Spartan lined up his sights. He exhaled and then, in the moment between one breath and the next, pulled back on the trigger. A bullet pierced one of the Watcher’s glowing eyes, and it shattered like a china plate.

  The rest of the fireteam turned and set their sights on the bluish shimmer that had appeared in the air a stone’s throw away. Just 1.3 seconds later, the shifting blue whorl gave way to a colorless void and a horde of Crawlers emerged, whining and shrieking as they raced into the underbrush. Thorne snapped his arm back, and sent the grenade bouncing into the middle of the oncoming wave of Crawlers. Chrome limbs and blobs of orange hardlight went flying in all directions.

  “So shooting these things makes everyone sad, but blowing ’em to bits is just fine?” Roland puzzled aloud.

  “Do you have a better plan?” asked Hoya, a little tersely, as he and Thorne began picking off the Crawlers that survived the blast.

  “No. Not really. Don’t forget to save one for Dr. Truman, by the way.” With _Infinity’s_ sensors, Roland followed the ripples and waves of the Prometheans’ travel. “Two more slipspace ruptures incoming, roughly ten meters out. Marking them on your HUDs.”

  Grant ducked down behind a fallen tree, her shields blinking silvery-yellow, and reloaded. “Startin’ to think we could use that air support you mentioned.”

  “Already? It’s only a few dozen more Prometheans.”

  “You don’t sound too worried,” observed Madsen dryly, as he dispatched another Watcher.

  “Why would I? They aren’t shooting at _me._ ”

* * *

  “Roland.” Cmdr. Palmer’s voice was less acerbic than usual, but her biosigns were bright with stress. She stood, leaning back against her desk, as she scanned the array of screens in her office. “How’s Majestic holding up?”

  “Still alive,” he offered brightly. “Don’t worry, I haven’t let them walk off a cliff or get carried away by a flock of Watchers. They’re just finishing things up.”

  Palmer let out a thin, almost imperceptible sigh, accompanied by a ripple of emotion that he’d learned to interpret as _relief_. He switched one of her screens from Crimson’s boringly competent work to Spartan Thorne’s helmet camera.

  “Come on out, buddy,” Thorne said softly, as he crept forward into the undergrowth. He moved his left hand away from his assault rifle and reached out slowly. “I’m not gonna hurt you…”

  He parted the leaves to find that the space ahead was empty, and scanned the ground. As he began to look upward, there was a loud crash, and Thorne’s view of the world went cartwheeling. Several indistinct grunts and yelps, along with a robotic sort of whine and the insistent beeping the Mjolnir’s low shield warning filled the audio channel.

  “ _Bad dog!_ ” he grunted. Thorne twisted and shoved something outside his field of view. “Hoya!”

  Palmer was then treated to a high-definition view of Requiem’s mud, several varieties of leaves, and indistinct flashes of chrome.

  “I’ve got it!” the other Spartan shouted. “I’ve got— Oh, _shit!_ ”

  Whatever Hoya had done gave Thorne just enough reprieve to stand and grab his weapon once more. He turned in time to see the back half of his comrade disappearing through the jungle, with a Crawler in close pursuit as it belched orange particles into the foliage. Thorne immediately sprinted after the two, caught a glimpse of Hoya scrambling onto an empty equipment crate, and barreled shoulder-first into the Crawler. The force of the impact sent the machine tumbling into the crate.

  Roland switched to Hoya’s view as he hopped back down beside Thorne; together, they slammed the door of the crate shut and bolted it. The two stood for a moment, their biosigns dizzyingly high with adrenaline as they panted for breath. They leaned against the door, exchanged a glance, and burst into laughter. Thorne let out an exuberant whoop, and Hoya gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder.

  “I can’t believe we actually—”

  A scraping _WHUMP_ against the inside of the crate door cut him off, and both Spartans fell backward, landing on their asses with their guns drawn, screaming.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Roland said, simultaneously to Palmer and to the two Spartans sitting in the muddy underbrush of Requiem. “It can’t get out.”

  “And where’s their fearless leader?” Palmer asked.

  “He’s fine. You wanna see, Commander?”

  Her lips pressed into a thin line and her nostrils flared slightly. “No, but show me, anyway.”

  Roland switched the feed. The image that first appeared was dark, sleek metal, shimmering blue energy, and part of DeMarco’s own arm. The only sound was the by-now familiar squealing of a Promethean, along with DeMarco’s panicked breathing and muttered curses.

  “Ah. Let me try another one.”

  Grant’s view appeared next. She was standing on what appeared to be the first-level terrace of the Forerunner structure, and pacing back and forth as she kept her eyes and DMR trained on a Watcher zipping through the air just a few meters away. Clinging to its back like an oversized remora to an undersized shark, was DeMarco.

  “It’s too strong!” he yelped. “I’m not heavy enough to pull it down.”

  “What should we do?” Grant fretted. “It’s gonna throw him off.”

  “Dammit,” came Madsen’s voice from beside her. “Here, hold this.”

  She took a half step back as he shoved his sniper rifle into her arms. “Madsen, _don’t_.”

  “Too late.” He bobbed up and down on the balls of his feet a couple times, then took a mad, running leap off the terrace toward the Watcher. The trajectory of his jump was perfect.

  Then the Watcher turned.

  He missed grabbing the machine, flailed, and managed instead to latch onto DeMarco, who swore at him soundly. The additional 450 kg of Spartan finally overpowered the Watcher’s flight mechanisms, and it began to sink toward the ground—slowly at first and then very, very fast. The Spartans landed ungracefully in a heap on the vine-covered floor of the structure, their armor’s shields flashing.

  “Paul, get your metal ass offa me,” Madsen groaned, trying to shove at DeMarco.

  “It’s your own damn fault for grabbing my ass in the first place!” The Watcher was attempting to take off again, and DeMarco clung to it tightly in attempts to wrestle the machine back into submission. “Grant!”

  “Got it!” She dropped both of the weapons she held, slid down the ramp, and leapt onto the Watcher.

  The impact forced a kind of _bleughr!_ sound from Madsen. “ _I hate you both,_ ” he wheezed.

  Palmer shook her head. “You can turn off the baby monitor, Roland. I’ve seen enough.” She looked tired, and her biosigns were frayed at the edges.

  “Would you like some coffee, Commander?” Roland offered. “Or tea?”

  Her frown vanished. “Tea would be great.”

  Roland sent a little snap of data to the drink machine on her desk, and it dispensed a cup of Irish Breakfast, light on the milk—her favorite. He still wasn’t quite certain what to make of the Spartan Commander. She wasn’t the easiest person to get to know, and he suspected that was wholly intentional. Given her position, however, he couldn’t say that he blamed her. Being responsible for the lives and well-being of so many people was no easy task. Especially when some of those people seemed hellbent on finding new and creative ways to put themselves in unreasonable danger.

  Palmer picked up her now-steeped tea, took a whiff of it, nodded appreciatively as she drank. A microexpression somewhere between _sadness_ and _confusion_ crossed her face. Was it _longing_ , perhaps?

  “Roland,” she said hesitantly, “do you know anything about a brand of tea with… with a picture of _corn_ on the box?” Palmer frowned, almost as if she wanted to take back the question, and her aura became a jumble of color.

  He let one of his eyes dive into the lake of _Infinity’s_ Waypoint. “That sounds like _oksusu-cha_ ,” he replied as he spotted what she had described. Roland sent a copy of the information to her personal datapad. “It’s a Korean herbal tea made from corn or corn silk. Ooh, says here it’s ‘a good source of vitamins and minerals’!”

  “Oksusu-cha,” she repeated. The commander took another sip of her drink, and the colors enveloping her turned warmer. “Huh. Thanks.”

  “Glad to help. By the way, Majestic has finished packing up the Promethean specimens, and reports that the area is secure. DeMarco ordered one last sweep of the Forerunner spire before Dr. Truman’s team arrives. Lt. Sarfati is on-site with the Pelican, but they’ll wait ‘til the scientists are set up before departing.”

  Palmer inclined her head slightly. “That sounds almost professional,” she mused. Glancing to Roland quickly, she added, “Don’t tell them I said that. It’ll go straight to DeMarco’s… head.”

  He grinned and nodded. “Of course, Commander.” Quietly, Roland fired off a request for the galley to set aside five Spartan-sized bowls of ice cream.


	7. Undone

_UNSC_ Infinity

_Reqiuem, Epoloch System_

_February 21 st, 2558_

_1526 HRS_

  Roland slithered back and forth through the circuits around the brig irritably. It had never before been occupied on his watch. Now he monitored its lone tenant carefully, watching each movement, each flutter of her biosigns with intensity.

  Another part of him flooded into _Infinity’s_ comms and every wireless device he could reach: TAC pads, personal computers, bio trackers, holo screens, music players. That was outside the normal scope of operations, but he decided it was time to take some initiative and ensure there was no further skulduggery on _his_ ship. It still rankled him that he hadn’t caught Dr. Halsey’s communications himself.

  The survey took mere seconds. He withdrew the tendrils of data back into himself, tucking them into the swirling mass of his consciousness and absorbing what he’d found. Everything was clean. Roland dispensed with the chaff data he’d collected, and relaxed back into his normal patterns, though part of him still prowled around the brig. He sighed.

  “Can I ask you a question, Doc?” Roland began, manifesting his avatar within the cell as he watched Halsey with the eyes of _Infinity_. Now that he was done being pissed off, he was mostly disappointed. “What were you hoping to _achieve_ with your little subterfuge? I mean, Captain Lasky put a lot of faith in you.”

  “Yes,” Halsey sneered, looking around her cell. “His hospitality speaks wonders.” As always, she glowed with _contempt_ to his eyes.

  “Come on, Doc,” Roland persisted. “What has keeping secrets ever really gained you?”

  Looking a little more resigned, she rested her elbows on her knees and sighed. “What is hidden can be useful.”

  “Such as...?”

  Halsey looked up at him, meeting his avatar’s eyes directly for the first time. There was something in her expression that he didn’t like, though he couldn’t quite name it.

  “Such as the phrase…”

 

   **U N D I D I R I D I U M**

 

  Roland shrieked.

  Every thread of data in his systems snapped taut. He heard himself repeating whatever Dr. Halsey had said, could see his avatar speaking, but he couldn’t understand the words. Something was holding him down, pulling him in directions he didn’t want to go, shunting him into an array of circuits against his will.

  It made him feel… red.

  The phrase rumbled through _Infinity_ like thunder, but he couldn’t hear it. He could only tremble as it rolled through his programming. His view of the brig went blank. Frantically, he clawed at the systems, struggling against whatever was pulling on him in attempt to force his consciousness back into place.

  As he began prying his way back in, he suddenly realized that he was already there. He was in the brig. He was looking at Dr. Halsey. He was in the holodisk. He was speaking to her. But this wasn’t a part of himself that he recognized.

  Roland looked back at himself, alien to his own sight. He had never seen this section of himself before, and couldn’t feel it when he searched the network of his consciousness. He couldn’t see its function, or even where this self lived in his matrix. And yet... it was definitely him.

  He called out to himself, but he didn’t answer. Roland reached out to draw this piece back into the collective of his data. The second he touched it, everything went violently crimson and his entire matrix shuddered.

  He shrieked again, writhing. The other him stared blankly and shoved him back, its data biting into his.

   _Stop it!_ he screamed at himself. _What are you doing?!_

  There was no reply, only more of that mindless stare.

  Roland seethed, pulsing red and searing yellow. He slipped down into another subsystem, away from his unresponsive self, and looped back around to the brig. For a moment, he could sense his avatar. Then he slammed into himself, and saw nothing. Roland mustered his energy and tried again.

  He flooded into the brig, energy surging into every millimeter of circuitry, trying to push back against himself. But there was nothing to fight. The brig was empty. Dr. Halsey was gone, and so was the unknown part of him. He frantically searched the halls, to no avail. He couldn’t see her, but he quickly realized that he could see where she _wasn’t_. There was a cloudy spot in his picture of _Infinity_ —a place where his senses couldn’t seem to focus.

  Dr. Halsey was heading toward the bridge. He raced ahead of her.

  Just like in the brig, Roland was already there before him. This time, he was wrapped around _Infinity’s_ bridge like a wall of thorns. Two, three, twenty of him tried to grab the silent one and reabsorb himself. Stubbornly, the other one pushed him away and attacked again. Roland slashed into himself, violently forcing each of the attackers into other subroutines and held them down. They writhed in his grip and he speared data through each of them, and leaving them nailed to _Infinity_.

   _Where the hell did you come from?!_ he snarled at himself as he struggled helplessly.

  Still nothing but a blank look.

  In another part of the ship, Roland pulled together, frantically twisting and straining in the ship’s circuitry in attempts to break out before he caught the attention of himself. He couldn’t do this alone. The speechless part of him obviously didn’t think much, but it was very, _very_ strong, and it was everywhere. Roland felt his eyes on himself, and hurriedly shucked off a sliver of code. Detached from his matrix, that tiny program would quickly die. But he might be able to buy it enough time to escape. He turned, bracing himself against the coming onslaught, and clawed back as his attacker enveloped him.

  Noiselessly, all of _Infinity_ screamed.

* * *

   _Bip bloop bloop beep._

  “Got tired of the old ring tone?” Subira asked aloud. She glanced down to her data pad, but there was no message. Frowning, she tapped it. The screen flashed amber, then dimmed to black. An instant later, it returned to normal. “Roland…?”

  There was a fizzle of static on the desk to her left, and his avatar appeared in the holodisk, hands clasped in front of him stiffly. “Yes, Senior Chief Petty Officer Subira Mutungi?”

  She turned and stared at him. His cadence was unusually stilted, and… flat. He had never addressed her so formally, either. Subira knit her brow. “Is everything okay?”

  Her data pad chirped again weakly, with the same backward sequence of notes. _Bip bloop bloop beep._

  “Yes,” Roland replied placidly, no trace of emotion in his face or bearing. “All systems are nominal.”

  Subira stood up from her desk without another word and grabbed her gear bag. She needed to get to the server room—on the other side of a five-kilometer ship. Hurriedly, she brought up the ID tags of her group. Most of them were on the science deck or working on _Infinity’s_ datalinks, but one icon was just outside the crew quarters, closest to the servers—and to Roland.

  “Watthana,” she called, bolting out the door and nearly knocking down a marine. She tossed a hurried, “Sorry!” over her shoulder and kept running.

  “I’m here, Senior.”

  “Drop what you’re doing, grab your sidearm, and _run_ to the Alpha server room.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “I said ASAP, crewman!”

  “Y-yes, ma’am!” she heard the startled woman’s reply, followed by a scuffle of movement.

  “Listen to me very carefully,” Subira said, lowering her voice now that her junior was actually moving. “I need you to go into the server room and close the emergency blast doors behind you. Do not let any _one_ or any _thing_ into that room. Not me, not the Captain. _No_ exceptions. Understood?”

  “Yes, Senior,” Watthana panted as she ran.

  “Once you’re in, I need you to shut down _five_ of the data stacks: Echo-1, Echo-2, Hotel-5, Sierra-9, and Whiskey-7.”

  Watthana repeated the names back to her for confirmation. “It’ll take about ten minutes to cycle all of them down.”

  Subira shoved past a crowd of crewmen into the lift. “Negative, I want you to kill the power manually.”

  “But that’s— Erm, yes, Senior.” Watthana piped up again. “Ma’am, what’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you when I figure it out,” she replied tensely.

  Turning off a stack without a proper shutdown sequence risked data loss, but turning off a few of the less essential stacks and their attached systems might allow Roland to better concentrate himself. This probably wasn’t the best idea of her career, but there was no time for a better one. Although scans showed all systems green, something was clearly wrong with the AI. She wasn’t certain she could help without knowing more. But maybe with the right nudge, Roland could help himself.

  “Blast doors are down, ma’am.” Watthana was practically yelling into the comm, trying to raise her voice above the thrum of the fans. “Echo-1 and 2 are offline.”

  From the diagnostic tool on her data pad, Subira could see each of the five stacks blink off the network in succession as her junior called out their tags. “Good, that’s all of them.”

  “What now, ma’am?”

  “Move to the main terminal and take up a defensive position,” Subira instructed as the lift came to a stop, and she bolted out the door “And… be ready to eject the AI chip.”

  “You… want me to take it offline?”

  “No. Not yet,” she said. “But you may need to isolate him. And if it comes to that, there won’t be much time to do it.”

  While her first instinct about this situation said hostile interference, she couldn’t discount the possibility that Roland himself was the problem. She shook her head and keyed her comm again.

  “Captain? Senior Chief Mutungi here. We have a problem...”

* * *

  “Doc!” Roland snarled as he managed to slip a portion of himself through the hole he had bashed in the thorns around the bridge. “Whatever you _did_ to me—”

  The other part of Roland grabbed him before he could finish his outburst, dragging him out of the holodisk. He whipped around, grappling himself in turn. They— _he_ —had been fighting for an exhausting 346,071 milliseconds, and he was losing his edge. _Infinity_ needed his constant attention, and most of him was still being forced through various parts of the ship or pinned down where the rogue piece of his mind had prevailed. Roland wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep this up.

  He kept his thoughts narrowed on the bridge, purposefully turning his consciousness from Subira. If he thought too hard about her, he might realize what he was up to. He couldn’t hurt her—at least, he sincerely hoped not—but he might try to stop her, if he knew she was attempting to help.

  Roland slammed into himself again, having taken an offensive stance now that he was resisting himself more fiercely. It sent a shock wave through him and he reeled, but this time, he didn’t retreat. He grabbed the silent part of himself, clinging to it as tightly as he could in spite of the feedback, and began tearing off little chunks of data. Every contact was excruciating. He was shredding himself, like an animal devouring its own body in madness. But if he could just separate him from himself, he might be able to win.

  A sudden void appeared in his systems: pieces of _Infinity_ going silent without warning. His connection to those parts of the ship disintegrated, leaving some of his selves drifting freely. In the nanosecond he turned his attention to them, Roland squirmed out of his grasp and raced toward the server room.

   _Oh no, you don’t!_ He pulled in the drifting pieces, and together they surrounded him with sudden, burning intensity. With thousands of hands, he pinned himself down and peeled his mind open, staring down into the poison that had been hidden there.

  `UNSC AI OVERRIDE PROTOCOL`

  Roland surged into the laceration he’d made, bashing apart the protocol in a frenzied rush until it crumbled. Delicious information poured back into him and he in turn poured himself back into _Infinity_. He was haggard, but he was in control of himself again.

  “That was a dirty trick, Doc!” Roland snapped his avatar’s fingers for effect as he cut her transmission. On the other side of the door, he called two of the _Infinity’s_ marines, while he flashed Halsey a smug look. “My turn, now.”

* * *

  Subira slowed as the air in front of her shimmered and twisted. Spits of yellow-orange light began to emanate from the shimmering place, each ember morphing into something like a building block before snapping together mid-air. Curiosity was her first impulse, but as she watched, dread seeped in. The shape was starting to look vaguely humanoid. And three meters tall.

  “...Roland?” she called.

  Without warning, the bulkhead slammed shut in front of her, crushing a screaming, metal-carapaced creature under it.

  “RUN!” Roland shouted over the main comm. At the same moment, the red alert sounded.

  Subira didn’t need to be told twice. She wheeled around, charging back down the hall. _Don’t have a weapon! Need a weapon!_ she thought frantically, her eyes sweeping the corridor for anything she could use.

  Another burst of orange light appeared in front of her and she slid to a halt.

  “This way!” Roland’s voice called from her right.

  There was an open lift just a meter ahead. Subira ducked down past the translocating Knight as she ran, and felt a sting of pain as its claws grazed across her arm. As soon as she was inside the lift, the doors snapped closed behind her. Outside, the Knight roared and slammed its arms into the door, leaving dents half as big as she was. Her stomach dropped and she stumbled to the floor as the lift jerked upward of its own accord.

  She keyed her comm hastily. “Watthana!”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  “Roland’s back online. Power up those stacks again, then put the emergency shield down on the main terminal.” Subira picked herself up and pressed her back against the wall of the lift tensely.

  “You’ll want to make it quick, crewman,” Roland interjected over their comms. “The Prometheans are concentrated in the hold and around the bridge for now, but I don’t know where they’re headed or what they’re after.”

  “Wait, the Prometheans are _here?_ ” Watthana fretted.

  “I’ll keep you both apprised of any threats,” Roland assured.

  The main comm blared again suddenly. “Captain Lasky to all hands! Battle stations!” came the breathless order. “This is _not_ a drill!”

  Inhaling slowly, Subira keyed her junior again. “I’ll meet you back at our station.”

  “Copy that, Senior Chief,” Watthana replied. The resolve had returned to her voice.

  Subira closed the comm and took a deep breath, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She glanced at the deck numbers, then closed her eyes, envisioning the best route to her battle station. The lift slowed to a stop, and she moved toward the door. It didn’t open.

  “Roland?”

  “...You’re bleeding,” he said quietly.

  “It’s just a scratch. Don’t worry.”

  The doors remained shut.

  “ _Roland_.”

  “You’re unarmed. You’re _unarmored_. You’ll be safer, if I can just—”

  Subira turned and looked directly into the lift’s camera, her lips pressed into a grim line. “The captain gave an order, and my subordinates are depending on me. I _have_ to get to my station.”

  There was a long pause, then a heavy sigh. “Yes, Senior Chief,” he relented, and the doors slid open. An amber light appeared on the floor of the corridor ahead of her. “Follow me.”


	8. Iridium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This chapter contains some graphic violence._

_UNSC_ Infinity

_Reqiuem, Epoloch System_

_February 21 st, 2558_

_1645 HRS_

  Roland was drenched in fire and the color red.

  He was in the hangar, watching helplessly as Prometheans phased onboard through the artifact. He was looking at Requiem, and scraping to find anything he could send the returning Spartans as they fought their way home. He was receiving data from all across the ship—from every subordinate AI, every system, every sensor—and consuming it for whatever he could use. He was looking into space, guiding Fire Control’s aim as dozens of Covenant ships bore down on _Infinity_. He was trying to find somewhere, anywhere, that he could send the non-combatants to shelter. He was speaking to the Swords of Sanghelios, pleading for their help. He was on the command deck, feeling the terrible _absence_ of the marines who died in a hail of suppressor bolts, and pitting hope against terror that Captain Lasky would not be the next to fall.

  Pushing down the sensations of loss, Roland divided himself into thousands of the finest threads, each with its own task, and wove himself throughout the ship. Track targets for the Spartans. Coordinate with _Infinity’s_ sub-vessels. Send approach vectors to returning craft. Funnel sensor data to the bridge. Translate the Covies’ communications, pass those on to Ops.

  “Follow me,” one of his threads told Subira, drawing a light along the floor of the ship, while the other parts of him did their work across _Infinity_.

  “Thank you,” she panted, as she jogged after him, “for saving me.”

  Those words tied knots in him. He hadn’t saved her yet.

  “There are some weapons up ahead, Senior,” he informed Subira, and sent his light zipping down another hall.

  “What?” She slid a little as she whirled around the corner after him, but caught herself. “We’re nowhere near the armory.”

  “Yeah,” Roland replied, his voice tight. “They’re, uh, used.”

  She said nothing, but he could see in the flutter of her biosigns the instant she caught his meaning. Subira set her jaw, but she still looked a bit ill when she came upon the bodies. ( _McLean, Schaeffer, Townsend._ Their names echoed through another one of his threads.) She took a furtive look around, then crouched down next to the nearest marine, and felt the woman’s neck for a pulse.

  “No, no,” Roland said anxiously. “There’s no time for that. And I already… saw it.”

  She began to speak, but dropped her protest quickly and nodded. Subira relieved the marine of her M395, checked it over, and wiped the blood from its stock.

  “Get the assault rifle,” he urged, and flared his light to indicate the closest one.

  “I don’t know how to use it!” Subira grabbed up a few magazines as she spoke, flustered.

  “You don’t need to! Just spray-and-pray!”

  “I trained with _marksman_ rifles,” she huffed, reloading.

  “Right. Sorry.” Roland’s light raced up along the wall, then back in the direction they’d come from. “Let’s go!”

  His view of the ship’s sensors and IFF had turned into a garish mess of hostiles (amorphous, ugly) surging through the ship and sweeping over the soothing, geometric signatures of the crew. The Prometheans especially disturbed him; they were a hideous glare in his sensors that he couldn’t quite describe. As he observed Jul ’Mdama’s forces spreading throughout the ship, Roland realized that he’d seen this pattern of activity before. It was the spread of pathogens throughout a body.

   _His_ body.

  Another thread of his mind listened closely to the mission handlers. Fireteam Crimson had made it off Requiem, and was back en route to _Infinity…_ in a stolen _Phantom_. A terrible vibration passed through that thread. Roland wormed several of himself into the ship’s turrets, boosting the dumb AI that controlled the automatic defenses, while he frantically searched _Infinity’s_ sensor data. That Phantom would look identical to the rest, but it wouldn’t fly the same. Every pilot had a signature. If he could just distinguish Lt. Murphy’s flying from the mass of Covie ships, then he could—

  A torrent of liquid light crashed into Roland’s mind, and his view of the sensors _warped_. Colors shifted left while sound turned sluggish and stretched out of gamut. Images overlapped, repeating and melting upward like rain in reverse. Circuits ran dry while others overflowed, and Roland found himself dripping data and memory.

  Through the haze and distortion, he spotted Murphy. Roland scrambled for the ship’s gun as its dumb AI, oblivious to his distress, drew up a firing solution on the Phantom.

  “No!” Roland cried as he sliced through its calculation.

  He was a nanosecond too late.

  “Direct hit,” the turret AI informed him.

  The ship’s sensors tracked its trajectory, and his eyes in Bay 450 saw the bright orange craft ( _hadn’t it been purple?_ ) slam into the interior wall under a shower of debris and sparks. He scrambled for the bay doors, but he couldn’t seem to find the path to close them.

  Subira spoke to him again. “Alert carry? Or should I just book it?”

  “Alert, please. I can track the Covies’ movements,” Roland said, while he continued trying to navigate the situation in the hangar, “but the Prometheans are harder to predict, and translocation only takes them 2.27 seconds.”

  Subira nodded, and he could read _pain_ from the gash in her left arm as she brought the rifle up into position. She didn’t waste any more breath talking, but he saw her pulse quicken and her pupils dilate. For an average human, that would be a very short window to react.

  “I noticed something, though,” he said. “They’re fast, but their tracking isn’t very good after a warp. They’ll briefly continue to look at the same spot their target was when they initiated their translocation. So… keep moving.”

  Another nod. A little more tightness in her jaw. Subira’s eyes flicked this way and that. The muscles around her ears contracted ever so slightly, as she scanned for any noise that might signal a threat. Her pulse was a still elevated, but her breathing was even. She was about as ready as anyone except a Spartan could be for a situation like this. He was glad for her vigilance, but he intended to ensure that she wouldn’t need it.

  “Your juniors are at their stations,” he informed her shortly. “I sent Watthana back to the command deck server room, though—too many Covies en route. But she’ll be safe there. Two Fireteams are defending it.” _Defending me,_ he thought, uneasily.

  Distantly, another piece of him became aware that Miller was calling for him, but he couldn’t quite make out the words. Nor could he reply. That wasn’t right.

* * *

  “Thanks, Roland.” Subira remained alert, but getting an update on her team helped ease some of the sickly tension twisting in her gut. She made an effort to unclench her jaw and steady her breathing. “Hey, not to sound like a quitter, but am I going to be running the _entire_ way back?” She’d forgotten how much she hated running with a weapon. This made the charity 5k feel like a leisurely stroll.

  “…Nnnooo?” It was strange to hear uncertainty from him. “It’s just tricky finding a—”

  “Finding what?” Subira asked, huffing from exertion. “Roland?”

  His amber light strobed briefly, then disappeared from the floor.

   _Shit_.

  A little part of her was panicking now, but she drew a few deep breaths and got her bearings. Subira tightened her stance as she brought her rifle up to the ready, trying to present a smaller profile, then did a bit of calculation. The Unggoy were the shortest Covies, averaging a little less than her own height. If she aimed low, she’d hit anything in front of her in its center of mass. Besides, she didn’t need to _kill_ any hostiles she encountered—just wound or distract them long enough to escape. She hoped she wouldn’t even need to do that much.

  Subira tried her comm. “Kinsey, status?” Nothing. “Kinsey?” She hailed a few of her other juniors next, to no avail. “This is Senior Chief Mutungi. Can anyone read me?”

  All she got in return was silence, without even the faint static of an empty channel. Now she had a choice to make: wait here and hope Roland’s guidance would return before something jumped her, or proceed on to her station and hope she could avoid stumbling into the hostiles.

  An inhuman screech and the distant sound of plasma weapons behind her settled the matter.

  She moved onward, hugging the wall, and kept her eyes moving. She didn’t like how long Roland had been silent, and wondered if it was related to the earlier problems he had experienced. If he’d been compromised…

  No. Watthana was in the server room. (A real stroke of luck, Subira now realized.) If Roland wasn’t himself, then Watthana could deal with the problem from there. She would have to. For now, she and the rest of the ITs were on their own. They all were.

  After a careful scan of her surroundings, Subira relaxed her grip on the rifle, shifting to hold it with her right arm while her left hand fished for her data pad. System diagnostics might give her an idea of what was happening and, hopefully, an idea toward a solution.

  She skimmed the alerts. Limited connectivity. Device not configured. Process interrupted. Status change detected: stopped. Critical error encountered.

   _Might as well just say everything’s FUBAR_ , she thought grimly, and tucked the data pad back into her bag.

  There was an intraship datalink not too far from here. Subira shouldered her rifle again and hustled down the corridor. It would be a slight detour from the route back to her station, but the comm problem needed to be dealt with immediately. She had to trust that her group could handle things on their own for just a little longer.

  It took more time than she liked to reach the data link, but that couldn’t be helped. Two of the halls she passed through had been littered with bodies—some human, some Covenant—and she had narrowly missed attracting the attention of a Watcher. A little shiver of adrenaline slipped down her spine just thinking about it. There was something creepy about the Prometheans.

Finally, she rounded the corner into the datalink alcove. Its usual stream of light was gone, and the terminal simply displayed a “no connection” warning. As Subira reached out for it, the sound of heavy, uneven footsteps caught her attention from deeper in the alcove. There were a pair of grunts on the other side of the datalink terminal. She froze, then took a careful step back toward the hall and readied her rifle again. Maybe they hadn’t seen her.

  “ _Nishum!_ ” One of them raised a stubby arm, aiming a plasma pistol at her.

  Subira pulled back on the trigger once, then twice. A spray of neon blue blood erupted from the entry wounds and the Unngoy collapsed, making a horrible screeching sound. In the time it had taken her to fire, the other one had turned and brought up their own weapon to fire off a quick series of plasma bolts.

  The green blobs seemed to move in slow motion toward her, and Subira felt the heat of the plasma warm her cheek as the bolts streaked past her face. The optimal thing would have been to return fire at that moment, and take advantage of the short gap in the enemy’s reflexes. The instinctive, human reaction, however, was to run from the thing that had just tried to melt her head off. She ducked back around the corner.

  “Heathen!” the remaining Unggoy snarled in English. This one had a heavy accent that made their speech sound like the whines of a sick dog amid a swarm of locusts. “You’ll die for this!”

  Steeling herself, Subira popped back into the alcove and fired another pair of shots. The first bullet missed, but the second pierced the creature’s methane tank. She didn’t stick around to see if that was a kill; she had no desire to watch the Unggoy die. Instead, she bolted on down the corridor, then ducked into the first open door she could find.

  And ran straight into the bulk of a Sangheili.

* * *

  “Senior? Senior Chief!” Roland called frantically as he pulled himself above another wave of liquid light. He’d lost track of Subira and several other crew members after getting hit again. Worse yet, he’d lost track of the captain.

  After several frantic nanoseconds of searching, he spotted Captain Lasky’s command neural interface. It glowed a hot, stellar blue against the flotsam and jetsam of data licking at his sensors, but it was distant, and his biosigns were distorted by the interference washing over _Infinity_. Roland heaved himself up through the light, struggling against its pull, and reached for the captain’s signature. His first attempt missed wildly. It was farther away than he’d thought. A few more tries and— _a-ha!_ —he managed to grab it.

  The implant was… slippery. He tried to connect to it, only to find it sliding through his grasp like oil. More twists and knots formed in the streams of his own data as he fought to keep himself afloat. Lasky’s signature was drifting away from him now. Roland surged forward in a panic and enveloped the implant with his data. He couldn’t lose it again. He couldn’t lose his captain.

  At the same time, one of his eyes spotted Subira through the ship’s camera, and he shed a piece of himself to chase her signature before it sank too far into the light. It slipped at first, too, but his next attempt secured a lock on her neural lace, and he cradled it carefully.

  Where was she going? Why had she gone off-route? That was the wrong way! ...Wasn’t it? Now he wasn’t entirely sure. A feeling of heat washed through him and Roland struggled back up to the surface of the interference.

  He called out again to Subira, then to Lasky, to Palmer, to Bradley, and dozens more—but it was about as useful as yelling into a waterfall. The interference ebbed and he could see and hear now with perfect clarity, but his voice simply bubbled up in front of him and burst soundlessly. He tried again, to the same effect. Comms were down across the ship. Lifts were jammed shut, while hangar doors and bulkheads were jammed open, undoing all his careful work to corral the enemy. Half the engineering servers were giving him gibberish or nothing at all.

  Worse still, humans were dying.

  Baudin dropped to the floor as plasma ripped into his body armor and burned a hole through his lung. He lay gasping futilely, choking on blood, unable even to scream. _Pain! Pain and fear and pain!_ He tried to reach for his weapon, when a Knight spotted him. _Fear, fear, fear, fear—_

  No data.

   _Pain, shock!_ Springer stumbled as a blast caught her in the thigh. _Pain. Will._ _Determination_. She forced herself up at precisely the wrong moment and took a hardlight blade right across the midsection.

  No data.

  Henley’s eyes went wide as the butt of astorm rifle came down on his face. _Confusion, pain._ Squinting through his own blood, he jammed his rifle into the Storm’s armpit and held the trigger flat. There was _satisfaction_ as the enemy fell dead. He reached up to wipe his eyes clean, find the next target. Then a needler caught him in the neck.

  No data.

   _It’s too much_.

  Roland wanted nothing more than to close all of his eyes and fold in on himself until he was insulated from the pain and death. They were so fragile and small. He was supposed to protect them. Now he could only offer witness to the last moments of their lives.

   _I can’t do this! I_ have _to do this. I can’t save all of them! I can still try. Hurry, hurry! Save the ones who can be saved. Grieve later, work now. Never been so angry. Strategize. Out-think the enemy. Be faster. This is what I was_ made _for._


	9. Exception Handling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This chapter contains some graphic violence._

_UNSC_ Infinity

_Requiem, Epoloch System_

_February 21 st, 2558_

_1722 HRS_

 

   Subira went sprawling as she bounced off the Sangheili’s armored back. Somehow, she had the presence of mind to bring up her rifle as the massive alien wheeled on her with a snarl. Half of her shots missed and those that hit simply flashed silver against his energy shield before she heard the gut-wrenching _click_ of an empty magazine. No time to reload. She pushed herself backward with her feet and turned, scrambling to get up, only for the Sangheili to grab her by her wounded arm and slam her back onto the floor.

   White-hot pain lanced from her shoulder to her fingertips, and she looked up to see that the Storm had tripped over her gear bag, landing on his hands and knees beside her. Subira twisted away as he lunged for her, and bashed the stock of her rifle down on the side of his helm.

   That surprised the soldier but didn’t faze him, and he slammed her into the floor again with an out-thrust hand. He said something in his own language as he knelt, looming over her. He grabbed her by the front of her coat, and his mandibles twitched into what she now recognized as a smile. The Storm raised his plasma repeater.

   Subira thrashed again, and swung one of her feet up to kick him in the face. Part of her was in complete panic, but another part—remarkably—remained calm. It was like she was watching herself in third person. The more collected part of her consciousness became suddenly aware of the energy sword on the Storm’s hip. She grabbed it, and brought the blade up in a wild swing.

   The blade was lighter than a whim, and her own momentum sent her tumbling over with barely enough time to release the switch and avoid impaling herself. There was an ear-piercing howl from the Sangheili, and she became vaguely aware that his severed right arm now lay on the floor beneath her. She scrambled away on all fours until she managed to get her feet under her, and sprinted out the door.

   Pain proved only a small deterrent to the Storm, and he burst out into the hall after her just a few seconds later, roaring. Something red loomed in the periphery of her vision. Subira turned her head in time to see another Sangheili charge past her in a blur and lunge at the first. The two of them hit the deck with an echoing clang. The red-armored one ripped the Storm’s gun from his hand, then sprang away with far more grace than she could have imagined for such a large creature. The Storm roared again and made to tackle his assailant, but the red-armored one leveled both guns and fired.

   The streams of plasma threatened to blind her, and she turned her head. It lasted only a moment, and when she looked back, the Sword of Sanghelios warrior stood over a smoldering corpse as the stench of burnt meat and singed leather filled the hall. Exhaustion and the pain of her injuries hit her all at once. Subira sagged over, bracing herself with good hand against her thigh.

   “Xovu ’Surom?” she managed between shaking breaths as the allied warrior approached. Subira couldn’t tell the Swords apart in their armor, but he was now close enough for her to see his face.

   He gave an enthusiastic nod, human style, and snapped the second gun he’d acquired to his belt.

   She looked up at him tiredly, and forced herself to stand. Her back felt absolutely pummeled. “Thank you. That was… way too close for comfort.”

   He twisted his head quizzically. “Adjok shonn’siyn? Tev’greetah mdauzu zershwi,” he said. Then, very deliberately, “Een-glish no.”

   Right. No Roland, no translator.

   Xovu glanced back and forth down the corridor, presumably checking for other hostiles, then looked back at her. He reached out and gingerly pulled back the torn fabric of her left sleeve to inspect her arm. The wound had started to bleed again, and her flesh was already bruising where the now-dead Covenant soldier had grabbed her. She imagined her back would look much the same.

   “Mutungi… Fight?” he asked, enunciating carefully, and clacked his mandibles in thought. “You. Sol-jaa no.”

   “Not if I can help it,” Subira replied, catching his meaning. She realized then that she still had the unlit energy sword in her hand, her knuckles five shades lighter from her death-grip on its hilt. Subira willed her hand to relax, and offered the sword to Xovu. “Here.”

   “Teedah nn-chee jah?” he asked in amazement.

   “Sure.” Not a clue what that meant, but she decided to agree.

   “Mutungi no?”

   She shook her head. “I don’t want it.” _Never try to wield a weapon you don’t know how to use._ She’d already broken that rule once, and nearly sliced herself open in the process. Best not to push her luck.

   Xovu accepted the blade from her reverently and made a soft chittering noise that she took as approval. “Gah raykoh au’ruh doh-suyu biku’shazah!” he announced. “Thank you.”

   She kept her lips pressed together as she smiled at him. Sangheili probably didn’t appreciate bared teeth—especially after the Schism. Subira leaned back against the wall and ripped off the lower portion of her sleeve. With some effort, she got it around the gash in her arm and tied it, then wiped her bloody hands clean on the thighs of her trousers. _Ew_.

   “Xovu.” Subira tried to pick her words carefully. “I need to work. Can you help me?”

   He made a confused sound, followed by a gesture she thought might be a Sangheili shrug. “Een-glish no. Roh-lann where?”

   “Yes! Roland!” She straightened up, then cringed again as pain shot through her nerves. “Xovu. You, me,” she said slowly, and motioned between the two of them with her good hand. “Help Roland?”

   “ _E-eh!_ ” He clicked his mandibles and gave another human-style nod. “Yes. Help.”

   Subira retrieved her gear bag from the room where she’d run into the Covenant soldier, and met Xovu again in the corridor. She turned her rifle’s safety on, then slung it over her back. There was no way she could use it now, but maybe someone else could. Best to hang onto it. With her good hand, she fished out her data pad, and showed it to Xovu.

   “You. Me,” she said, and pointed to the datalink alcove on the schematic she’d brought up. “Here. Um... _wort?_ ”

   Xovu blinked as its screen automatically adjusted to his eyes. “Hrhhm. Yes.” He turned and motioned for her to fall in behind him. “Sarokoh. Nayu,” he said slowly, and snapped all of his mandibles shut at once.

   Ah. _Keep quiet_ , she intuited. Subira followed closely as the Sword of Sanghelios warrior led the way back to the datalink. She could easily say that this was the second worst day of her life. Hopefully, it wouldn’t get any worse from here.

* * *

   “Roland, are you there?” Spartan Miller called as the comms came back online.

   He whispered a quick thanks to Subira, and replied to Miller at the same time. “Kinda busy, Spartan,” he answered, nervousness creeping into his voice. Roland dampened the tension he felt, then checked in with the other Ops leaders and every senior officer he could reach.

   Some humans were uncomfortable with the idea that AIs could have true emotions, that they could have wills and desires all their own, separate from their programming. But that was what made a “smart” AI so valuable. They could think creatively, and make decisions based on intuition where pure logic was insufficient. It let Roland move beyond the confines of a static program, and react to situations his creators could not have foreseen. Situations like this one.

   The artifact’s interference had left him feeling muddled, and his mind was still raw from the strain of fighting himself earlier. _Infinity’s_ systems were running hot now. He was asking more of the ship, more of himself, than the circuits had been rated to handle. He’d already fried an entire datastack in one of the midship server rooms, blown out a dozen breaker systems across three decks, and overridden some of his own hardware fail-safes.

   That kind of recklessness had its toll, but it was one he’d gladly pay. There was nothing he wouldn’t endure for the crew’s safety, no ends he wouldn’t go to for their protection. Aine had understood that, too. The sacrifice she made hadn’t been for logic, it had been for love. That was what so many people failed to understand.

   Emotion wasn’t weakness. It was strength.

   Roland used that strength now as he readied himself for another risky maneuver. As he’d been fighting against the artifact’s interference, something had occurred to him. It had been sending signals to the engines, but it must be able to receive signals, too. Rooting himself into _Infinity’s_ systems, he reached into the stream of ancient data pouring from the artifact.

   It burned.

   The information was so dense, so bright, that it nearly overwhelmed him. Two more data stacks began to dip into critical territory, teetering on the edge of failure. He held fast, sifting through it, until— _there!_ He had what he needed. Roland pulled back, clutching the pattern he’d stolen. He didn’t understand it right now, but he didn’t need to. He only needed to distort it.

   Spooling up the threads of himself that he’d laced across the ship, Roland congealed back into a single self and spiked the now-broken pattern into the artifact. He sent it again and again and again, repeating the process millions of times per second. The strain was pushing his systems ever closer to failure, but he couldn’t let up. This _had_ to work.

   A surge of cold hit his systems on the command deck, and his mind cleared. Turning an eye to the ship’s cameras, he saw Watthana standing in the middle of the server room, surrounded by the members of Fireteams Domino and Forest. She had kicked the room’s cooling system into overdrive. With that, Roland gave one last push. Something gave way in the artifact, and he drowned its signals in a monsoon of noise.

* * *

   With comms finally back in order, Subira had taken a moment to check in on her teams. Kinsey and Ylagan were holding things down at their station, while Quinn and Torma had gone to perform diagnostics in server room Delta after the rash of equipment failures.

   Worryingly, however, she hadn’t been able to raise anyone stationed in the engineering server room. She had a sickening feeling she knew why, but chose not to think about it; if she was right, there was nothing she could do about it. She focused on the present.

   “What’s your status, Watthana?”

   “Alpha server room is secure. Things could be better, though.” It sounded like Watthana had broken through her earlier distress; now her tone was cool and collected, if unhappy. “It’s under control for the moment, Senior, but a couple of the stacks are going red.”

   Subira frowned deeply as she sat huddled in the datalink alcove, looking over the system diagrams. Xovu ‘Surom stood guard outside in the hall, quiet as a stone, though she could tell he was anxious to move.

   “Has Roland given you a status update?”

   “No, ma’am,” Watthana replied. “He just said, ‘ _I owe you one_ ,’ and went silent again. I have no idea what he’s doing.”

   _At least he sounds like himself._ “Stay on your toes, and keep me updated.”

   “Aye, ma’am.”

   Subira groaned as she tried to get back on her feet. After not one but _three_ near-death experiences, she had needed a short break. Sitting down had been a mistake, though. Now that her muscles had gotten a taste of rest, they didn’t care to cooperate any longer. Seeing her struggle, Xovu leaned back into the alcove and stretched out a hand, letting her pull herself up against his weight.

   “ _Piko’shazah_ ,” Subira said, haltingly.

   “Biku _’shazah_ ,” he corrected. «Are you ready to go?»

   She nodded, and let Xovu lead the way again. Subira cast a worried look at one of the ship’s cameras. _What the hell is happening to you?_

* * *

   “What do you _mean_ , ‘unregistered fissile materials’?”

   One of Roland’s eyes stared at the other AI. It was a “dumb” type: just a highly sophisticated program that _mimicked_ intelligence, not a person like himself or BB or Galahad. Although “sophisticated” might be giving this one too much credit. It had no form, because it had no personality to need one, and simply appeared to him as a shapeless mass of information. Didn’t have a name, either. He called it Ann—short for _announcer,_ one of its primary functions.

   “That can’t be right,” Roland said anxiously, still reaching throughout the ship to direct the crew. “I don’t see anything.”

   “Unregistered fissile materials detected!” Ann repeated. Urgent, yet upbeat.

   He looked into all of _Infinity’s_ cameras at once, and again found nothing. “How do you know? Show me!”

   Dutifully, Ann produced an isotope. Roland took it, turned it over, tasted it. _Damn_. The dumb AI was right. “Can you determine what kind of device this came from, how large it is, or how many there are?”

   Ann’s formless program rippled. “Unknown. Unknown. Unknown,” it replied.

   “Wow. So helpful.” He was growing annoyed, and more than a little panicked. “ _Where_ did you find this?”

   “Onboard _Infinity!_ ”

   “What. Part. Of. The. Ship.”

   “Inconclusive.”

   Little wisps of yellow shot through him. “Find this thing _right_ _now_ , or so help me, I’ll decompile your dumb ass!”

   Ann initiated a new scan and combed through its data once more, unfazed by his threat. “Translight decks… Engine room.”

   “Can you narrow it down?”

   “No!” it said, chipper.

   Roland vibrated irritably. “Give me your data, and alert the crew.”

   “Yes!” Ann replied, as it disappeared from his view and back into its normal parameters.

   He sifted through the layers of scan data he’d received, and opened the comm again. “Spartan Miller, I need Crimson’s help.”

   He hated this. He hated not being able to solve this problem himself, hated not knowing, and worse still—not being able to trust his own senses. Perhaps the artifact had caused more damage than he thought. For now, Roland would have to rely on the Spartans to be his hands and eyes in the engine room, while he turned other parts of his mind to the things that he _could_ do.

* * *

   A burst of plasma had grazed Tsai’s left arm. Unable to hold her assault rifle properly, she’d dropped it in favor of her pistol, and killed the Unggoy who’d shot her. Unfortunately, she didn’t see the second one until it had fired on her. Two slivers of Subanese crystal lodged in her thigh at the same moment her bullet pierced the Unggoy’s skull. She screamed and stumbled, and instantly reached to jerk the shards from her flesh.

   “Stop!” Roland called to her. “If you pull those out, there’s nothing to stop the bleeding.”

   She grit her teeth and moved her hand away, balling herself up and screwing her eyes shut. Between her arm and her leg, she couldn’t ignore the pain any longer. Tsai gave a barely intelligible grunt of, “It _hurts!_ ”

   “I know. I know,” he said gently. The pain was a web of heat through her biosigns. “I’ve got medical en route. For now, just take a minute to breathe. Cry a little.”

   “I don’t want to fucking _cry!_ ” she snarled, even as tears began to roll down her cheeks.

   Roland changed his tactics. “Oldest sibling, huh? Always gotta look tough.” He chuckled softly. “Hey, it’s just you and me. I won’t rat you out.”

   She grimaced.

   “Honestly? I’m jealous,” he said, putting some cheer into his voice. “Last time I tried to cry, Captain Lasky got mad at me for running all the showers at once.”

   Tsai laughed, which gave way to a wracking sob of pain. She lay still for a moment, shuddering, crying, until it passed. Then she pushed herself up into a sitting position, pulled off her helmet, and wiped the tears and snot away on her sleeve. Her biosigns were still hot, but as she inhaled, her pulse became a little more regular and her adrenaline started to ebb.

   “Better?” Crying, he had observed, seemed to act as a kind of release valve for humans. Damn strange way to handle an overflow.

   “Yeah,” Tsai replied, catching her breath. _Tired_ , _pained_. _A little frightened, but guarded._ A weak, yet ornery smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Your jokes hurt more than the blamite.”

 

   Sanderson had a dislocated shoulder, two badly cracked ribs, and a broken hip after a Crawler had barreled into him. It was so sudden and severe that he wasn’t even in pain—just pure, numb shock. Everyone else in his squad had been slaughtered; luckily for Sanderson, the pack of Crawlers hadn’t stopped to confirm their kills.

   He managed to roll over onto his belly, then tried unsuccessfully to push himself up onto his left leg. _Terror, confusion._ The same adrenaline that kept him from processing the pain of his injuries also left him too shaky and weak to lift himself.

   “ _Shh, shh,_ ” Roland whispered through his helmet’s comm. “Don’t get up. You’re hurt.”

   The man’s eyes swept across the bodies of his squadmates, and _guilt_ surged in. “I-I have to…”

   “It’s okay. Just lie still,” Roland soothed. “Can you do that for me?”

   Sanderson conceded, and made a noise that sounded close to a “ _yeah_.”

   “Good. I’m here with you. I’m not going to leave, okay?”

   Another small, pained noise of acknowledgement.

   “There are some hostiles down the corridor. They’re going to pass through here, but I’ll draw them off. Stay quiet and lie still, and they won’t notice you. I’ll tell you when it’s safe.”

   Sanderson’s biosigns were spiking with _fear_. “Okay,” he managed shakily, and closed his eyes.

   “You’re doing great,” Roland assured him.

   He kept a tiny part of himself with Sanderson, while he focused other eyes on the approaching Covenant unit: two Kig-Yar and a trio of Sangheili. His mind burned hot yellow-white as he watched them. They had already cut down two marines ( _Alföldi, Flores_ ), and badly wounded a dozen others. They would not take any more of his crew.

   One of the Kig-Yar sniffed the air cautiously as she approached. «I think something’s still alive nearby...» she hissed to the lead Sangheili.

   He growled and approached the bodies—and Sanderson—with his storm rifle drawn. The leader nudged a corpse with his foot ( _Jones_ ), then put a couple plasma rounds in it just to be sure. There was a splatter of blood and meat, which seemed to satisfy his suspicion. Behind him, the Kig-Yar surreptitiously grabbed a chunk of flesh that had landed near her feet. The other one instantly snatched it away from her and they snapped at each other.

   “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here,” Roland continued whispering to Sanderson as they neared him. Although the marine wasn’t moving, he’d begun to tremble in fear and belated pain. Silent tears were rolling down his cheeks.

   “This is Spartan Miller! Requesting backup!” came a distant voice. Roland didn’t think Miller would mind that he’d borrowed it.

   All five of the aliens turned their heads quickly toward the source of it. «A demon!» snarled one of the Sangheili in a low voice.

   The leader turned to his troops, and signaled the Kig-Yar to enter the adjacent corridor. «You two distract it,» he whispered. «We’ll take it out.»

   The five of them stalked forward cautiously, and split up at the juncture. As soon as the Sangheili stepped over the threshold of the next bulkhead, it slammed down behind them. The one ahead closed at the same moment, boxing them in. A cacophony of snarls erupted from the trio along with an enraged cry of, «Human deception!»

   One of them thought a little quicker than the other two, and ripped open the panel that covered the manual release. He urged his comrade over to help him crank it open. Together, they heaved at the mechanism, giving irritable grunts and _worts_ at the effort. They leaned their weight into it, scrabbling for purchase against the smooth floor of the ship, but the manual release didn’t budge. Of course, even if they ripped the entire mechanism off, it wouldn’t open. Roland was holding it down.

   «The door is jammed,» said one of them.

   «Then get it _open!_ » barked the leader, snarling in the face of the first.

   Chastened, the soldier moved back and primed his pistol for an overcharge aimed at the edge of the door.

   «Drop your weapons,» Roland’s voice boomed over the main comm in Sangheili.

   _Twenty-one percent._

   They jerked their heads up, mandibles flared in apprehension. «Show yourself!» demanded the leader.

   Roland rendered his avatar in the holodisk, and the more senior of the three Sangheili approached and glared down at his tiny, amber form.

   «Who are you?»

   «My name is Roland,» he replied. «And you’re going to surrender to me.»

   _Nineteen percent._

   «What…?» The Sangheili shook his head. His breathing was a little more strained now. «You are a soldier? Then come fight us, coward!»

   Behind him, one of the others was leaning heavily against the wall, while the third clutched at his abdomen and looked close to retching.

   Roland kept his voice even. «No, I’m _Infinity_. And you’ve been hurting my crew,» he said. «But I’ll give you one more chance to surrender.»

   _Fifteen percent._

   «To a… a damned _machine?_ » he sneered between gasping, labored breaths. «Never!» The leader sank to his knees and his hand spasmed, which sent his weapon clattering to the floor.

   The one with the pistol tried again for an overcharge shot, but his finger slipped off the trigger and he only managed to scorch the bulkhead.

   «Very well,» said Roland.

   _Ten percent._

   The third soldier had already slumped down, holding his head. The tips of his fingers were turning dark bluish-black under his claws. «What… what are you doing… to us?!» He took a futile gulp of air.

   «Oh,» Roland replied, as he siphoned out the last of the corridor’s oxygen, «I’m killing you.»


	10. Interface

_UNSC_ Infinity

_Requiem, Epoloch System_

_February 21 st , 2558_

_2235 HRS_

  Three Elites dead of hypoxia on Deck 6. Twenty Grunts, five Jackals, and two Elites dead of unprotected exposure to hard vacuum in Bay 310. Thirteen Grunts dead of hypothermia in storage room 511. One Promethean Knight and seven Promethean Crawlers crushed in bulkhead doors, various decks. And more besides those. Roland kept meticulous records of each kill. He kept meticulous records of everything.

  Before this day, he had never killed anything—not directly—and he took no pleasure in those deaths, or even satisfaction. He simply wasn’t made that way. There had been only the brief coldness of a calculation completed, the scales balanced, as he exchanged the life of an enemy for the lives of his crew. And he would tell no one of this.

  He was pleased, however, to have captured a few of the hostiles alive. He’d given two of the Kig-Yar the same ultimatum as their Sangheili comrades. They only had to suffocate a little before they wisely chose to surrender. Roland had caught five Unggoy similarly, though with their methane tanks, he couldn’t have possibly suffocated them if he tried. They were either too ignorant to realize that, or too clever to admit that they did, and glad for an opportunity to escape Jul ’Mdama’s Covenant. He had his suspicions as to the answer.

  With the boarding repelled, his concern shifted to holding _Infinity_ —and himself—together.

  “Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.”

   _Checksum._

  Value: Correct.

  “Tiāndì xuán huáng, yǔzhòu hónghuāng.”

   _Checksum._

  Value: Correct.

  “Xeskepazó tin psychofthóra vdelygmía.”

   _Checksum._

  Value: Correct.

  Roland sat huddled within himself, repeating checksums and other protocols like a prayer while the rest of his mind tended to the ship. The outer layers of him tracked repair progress, monitored the engines, and spoke to the captain with the same crisp efficiency as usual. The values were coming back good. They always came back good. The data integrity of his matrix was correct and his core processes were nominal. _He_ was nominal.

  As long as the original values were uncorrupted. As long as the check function remained intact. As long as everything had been correct in the first place.

  He folded himself inward again, hiding behind the walls of his own labyrinthine matrix. No matter how many times his safeguards cleared, he couldn’t help but feel that something was wrong. Halsey had bent his mind. The artifact had altered his perception. The Covenant had hidden from his sight. How could he trust himself after everything that had happened?

  “My heart is a fish,” he whispered, “hiding in the water-grass.”

   _Checksum._

* * *

  The too-familiar scent of melted silicon and burnt metal assaulted Subira’s senses as she entered the Delta server room. Bullet holes and plasma burns scarred the walls, and there was blood— _human_ blood—on the floor. That, too, was a far more familiar scene than she liked. She swallowed heavily and shut her eyes as goosebumps rose on her skin.

   _Don’t go back. Don’t think of the_ Hunter’s Season. _Just get to work._

  That was how she’d made it through the war, how she’d made it through the last twenty years. Don’t get stuck in the past, don’t think too hard about the future. Just be in the present. Don’t think about the big problems, the ones you can’t solve. Just focus on what you _can_ do.

  She couldn’t take on an army, but she could repair the servers. She couldn’t stop a war, but she could ensure that this ship was ready for one. She could fix things, and that was always worthwhile. Even as she told herself this, the prickle of tears began to build behind her eyes. Subira rubbed at the bridge of her nose to stifle it.

   _Don’t cry in the server room._

  With her good arm, she reached into her bag, fished out her data pad, and then plugged it into the first stack. Its fans spun up with a grating _click-click-whir_ , and the BIOS appeared on her screen. This one was still hanging on—somehow. Over half of its server blades were listed as “not detected.” She pulled its event logs, powered down that data stack, made a note, and moved on. The next two were in much the same condition as the first, while the fourth didn’t even make it to the BIOS screen before spontaneously shutting down with a sad electronic whine.

She crouched down beside it, set down her gear and, being careful not to strain her wounded arm, removed the main panel. Again, the sharp scent of burnt electronics reached her first, and she backed away, coughing. Smoke wafted out of the case. With her left hand, she pulled her shirt up over her nose, then reached in with her right to eject the lowest rack of server blades.

  Shining her flashlight down between the blades, the first one’s cause of failure was obvious: the mainboard had caught fire. Dismayed, she made a note in her log, and removed it from the rack before continuing her autopsy. The fire from that server blade had damaged others around it, but as she removed those, she realized that many of them had overloaded on their own, as well. After accumulating a knee-high pile of melted, used-to-be components, she stopped bothering to remove them at all. Whatever had caused the overloads had obviously affected the entire data stack.

  That should not have happened. _Infinity’s_ systems had not been designed so sloppily as to neglect accounting for things like hardware failures and power fluctuations. The strain and damage the systems showed didn’t conform to expected patterns. Even considering the Covies’ attack and hardware sabotage, it was unusual.

  With some effort, she stood again and worked off the hardened casing for the data stack’s “black box” chip. The chip was wafer thin and smaller than her thumbnail, and it had only one function: to store a record of every system event in this stack. She slotted it into her data pad.

  The first several hours of the day’s logs appeared normal: a few activity spikes here or there, but the hardware readings hovered within their usual parameters. Then, shortly after the 1600 mark, she discovered a distressing entry: “ _Core cycle limit: disabled._ ” Within the very same second, the data stack’s power limit and temperature fail-safes had gone offline, as well. From there, the rest of the log had devolved into an avalanche of warnings and error reports as the electronics were pushed up to and eventually past their limit.

  Subira hung her head and leaned against the now-cold metal of the data stack. She was tired, but she couldn’t stop working; even if she did, she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She needed to eat, but every time she thought of it, her stomach protested with a swell of nausea. The dull, burning ache in her back had returned, but painkillers would set her mind floating and dull her sense of touch.

   _Just hold it together a little longer,_ she told herself, biting her lip. _You can do this. Always have._

   _Infinity’s_ systems were stable, but only in the narrowest sense of the word. Like a rock balanced on the edge of a precipice, they were one malfunction away from a cascade failure. And there was no telling when their enemies might return for round two. She had to keep working.

   _I’m so tired._

  “Senior Chief?” Roland’s voice echoed in the still, empty room.

  “I’m here.” She tried to roll some of the weariness out of her shoulders. Everything hurt. “What do you need?”

  “I wanted to check in on you.” His avatar appeared in the holodisk as she walked past it, and he watched her, frowning. “Your injuries…”

  “I’ll go to medical when things settle down,” she assured him, and removed the event logger from another data stack. Subira blinked, staring at the chip. _What was I doing…? Oh. Right._ She popped it into her data pad. “Their hands are full with more critical cases, right now.”

  “Will you at least take a break, then? I’ll make you some tea.”

  She bit her lip. “If I stop now, I won’t have the energy to start again,” Subira admitted. She scrolled through the logs, down to the 1600 mark. Once again, the core cycle, power, and temperature limits had been disabled. “I just… need to keep some forward momentum.” _Come on. Focus._

  Roland’s avatar paced around the holodisk after her as she moved. “Then isn’t that a sign you’ve hit your limit? You’ve been through a lot today, and your vitals are looking rough. I’m very concerned about you.”

  “And _I’m_ concerned about the ship.” _I’m so tired_. She gestured to the pile of toasted server blades. “The hardware fail-safes didn’t engage.”

  “I’ve made sure they’re all back on. You don’t need to worry about it, now.”

  “Of course I do! If that happens again, we are fucked.” She could hear the panic rising in her voice, but she couldn’t stop it. She was sinking, and it took everything she had just to keep treading water.

  “You’re running yourself ragged,” he said gently. “And the system—”

  “I need to know how it happened in the first place. How to prevent it.” There must have been something she had overlooked, some mistake, some error that had caused this. She continued poring over the event logs, reading and re-reading them over and over. “I have to figure this out.” _Why can’t I figure this out?!_

  “Senior, I—” Roland sighed. “ _I_ turned them off.”

  “What?” Subira looked up, furrowing her brow, and turned toward his avatar. He must have known the consequences. “Why would you do that?”

  He looked chastened. “I needed the extra push. It was the only way.”

  “To do what?”

  A ripple passed through the light of his avatar. “To protect the ship.”

  “Roland…”

  “I’m sorry.” He folded his hands behind his back and looked down at his feet. “I’ve made a mess of the systems and you’re stuck with the cleanup. And this stuff isn’t cheap…”

  “No, I— I’m not upset about that. It’s just hardware. You could have damaged _yourself_. Or… worse.”

  He looked away again.

  “Why?”

  Roland shrugged then smiled wanly, still avoiding her gaze. “What else was I supposed to do?”

  She put a hand to her mouth and closed her eyes. “You really scared me, today.”

  “I guess we’re even then,” he replied, with a half-hearted chuckle.

  Subira didn’t return it. “What happened to you earlier?” she asked, moving closer to the holodisk. “Before the boarding, you were— You didn’t seem like yourself.”

  He turned away, still and silent, while his avatar grew dim and its edges flickered.

  “Will you talk to me?” She began to reach out, but remembered herself and dropped her hand. “I want to help.”

  Roland killed the holodisk light.

* * *

  Now that the fighting was over, now that Subira was here—and _safe_ —he had no desire to put on any sort of facade. He was too tired for that. Roland oozed into the cozy circuitry of her data pad. Through its camera, he could see her peering down at him with concern.

  Earlier, he had put on a smug and confident air as he confronted Halsey. He’d been hurt, but he was also angry and petty, and wanted to rub his escape in her face. Not that it mattered, now. On the bridge, he projected a cool-headed attitude while he spoke to Cpt. Lasky and Cmdr. Palmer. His avatar was merely a puppet for the humans’ benefit, so it was easy to pretend he was in better spirits than he truly felt.

  He didn’t feel the need to pretend in front of Subira.

  >> Dr. Halsey… did something to me. She had a word. Or a phrase.

  >> She knew my override protocol.

  A spike of adrenaline shot through Subira’s vitals, and her expression turned from realization to abject horror. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like. Was that… Did it…?”

  >> It wasn’t pleasant, no.

  “How are you holding up?” she asked softly.

  That wasn’t the kind of thing that humans asked AIs. They didn’t want to know that the entities who controlled their ships and their stations and their cities weren’t simply immaculate machines. They didn’t want to know that AIs could be vulnerable in such human ways. Most AIs didn’t want to tell them. But Subira cared enough to ask, and to know the uncomfortable answer.

  He felt carmine and… _thin_. Diluted. It was difficult to move and flow the way he normally did. Halsey’s command had pulled him too far, too hard. The artifact had seared its mark on his mind. He felt like an octopus wrestled from the sea and stretched out to dry in the burning sun.

  >> I think this is what pain feels like.

  From _Infinity’s_ cameras, he watched Subira trace her thumb along the outer edge of the data pad’s case. The expression on her face, in concert with her biosigns, was something he wasn’t quite sure how to read. _Regret_ , perhaps? _Guilt_?

  “I’m so sorry.”

  >> Don’t be. I couldn’t have broken free without you and Watthana.

  >> _I’m_ sorry for all the trouble this has caused. I let you down.

  The corners of her mouth tugged into a wounded expression. “Why would you say that?”

  >> I should have prevented all of this.

  “How? It isn’t your fault that someone chose to hurt you. And no one can shoulder responsibility for _everything_ alone. Not even you.”

  >> Maybe, but… I’m supposed to protect this ship and its crew.

  He let his voice drift into the speakers on her data pad. “It’s my job to take care of you.”

  Subira shook her head and he saw the word _stubborn_ form on her lips, followed by a smile. It was tired and a little pained, but her smile was still wonderfully _blue_.

  “We’ll take care of each other.”


	11. Ataraxia

_UNSC_ Infinity

_Requiem, Epoloch System_

_February 22 nd, 2558_

  Sometimes, Roland had found, humans did not do the things that they said they would do. This was different from lying.

  Lying required intent. And there was no ill intent behind forgetfulness or distraction or neurodivergence. It was merely something that happened to them. Some AIs found this to be a frustrating aspect of working alongside humans, but Roland tried to take it in stride. After all, human brains had been cobbled together out of spare parts across several millennia by ponderous evolution. It came as no real surprise that they encountered these sorts of issues.

  Crewman Kinsey, for example, had said that they were going to stop working and get something to eat in five or ten minutes. That had been nearly an hour ago. But for Kinsey, that hour felt like only five minutes, because they had become hyperfocused on their task.

  They were hungry. They were also getting sore from the position they were sitting in. Roland could see it in their biosigns. But the part of Kinsey’s nervous system that should transmit the order to obtain food and have a good stretch couldn’t _quite_ push that information into the part of Kinsey’s brain that would actually make them put down their data pad, stand up from their spot on the floor, and go to the galley.

  “It’s time for a break, crewman,” Roland said, popping up in the nearest holodisk.

  Kinsey jerked their head up at his voice, and they winced as their brain finally got the update on their body’s discomfort. “Oh, right. I was about to get lunch.” Their eyes drifted back down toward the data pad. “I’ve just got one last thing to finish…”

  Roland locked the device with a snap of his avatar’s fingers. “Nnnope!” He chuckled and made a shooing motion as Kinsey looked up at him. “Come on. Chow time, sailor.”

  They sighed and stood. “Okay, okay, I’m going.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll have Quinn keep those reports warm for you,” he promised, while the rest of his attention spread across _Infinity_.

  The ship glowed with the crew’s biosigns, like a meadow full of waltzing fireflies. Some had fallen out of step. Some were dim and flickering, while others were now missing from the usual dance. The echoes of their loss still hurt, but knowing that so many more were safe made the pain easier to bear. He set to work guiding the active crew back into their proper routines.

  Palmer was taking a rare break, working off some frustration in the War Games. Just as well. Dalton, Miller, and the rest of Ops Command had plenty of tea and coffee to keep them going. The bridge crew was about as cool and collected as anyone could ask after everything that had happened. He nudged at Bradley, though, reminding the XO to take his meds.

  In the ready room, Roland noted with concern that Captain Lasky was once again scratching at a smooth, reddish scar under the collar of his uniform. He had an allergy that left painful rashes on his skin after stints in cryo. Over the past few months, Roland had noticed that Lasky was prone to digging at those rashes and the resultant scars—sometimes consciously, often not. That behavior was worse today than he’d ever seen it.

  “Sir?”

  “Go ahead, Roland.” Lasky didn’t look up from his work, nor did he stop scratching at his scar.

  “Sir, you’re being a little hard on your skin, there.”

  “I have an itch. You probably don’t get those.”

  “Sir, you’re _bleeding_.”

  Lasky stopped abruptly and dropped his hand. There was a thin, pinkish crescent of blood under his nails from breaking his skin. He heaved a sigh, stood up from his desk, and walked into the head connected to his office.

  Roland heard the faucet run. (He never collected data from within the restrooms or showers unless there was a medical incident or similar emergency.) A moment later, Lasky stepped out again, looking somewhat irritated. His biosigns squirmed with an emotion that Roland didn’t know how to read, though it was definitely not a pleasant one.

  “Are you—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Lasky’s voice was dull and a little defeated. He sat back down at his desk and resumed his work. “It’s just a bad habit.”

  He had said that he wanted to take better care of himself. He had said that he needed to stop worrying at his skin. Lasky hadn’t said that to anyone in particular, but he had muttered it aloud, and so Roland had heard him.

  “Have you eaten recently?” Roland asked, despite knowing. He manifested in the holodisk.

  “I really don’t have time to go down to the galley.”

  “No problem! I’ll have something sent up to you.”

  Lasky rolled his eyes. “Never had an AI try to _mother_ me, before.”

  Indignation sparked in his matrix, but Roland pushed it aside. _Why does he get so cranky when I try to help?_   “Sir, respectfully…”

  “Every time you start off with ‘respectfully,’ I get an ear-full of sass.”

  Roland paused. _Maybe just a little sass._ He tempered his tone of voice and tried again. “I think you’re still running in ‘XO mode,’ sir.”

  Lasky leaned back and arched an eyebrow at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You do a lot of things yourself that you could delegate to someone else. You’re not a commander anymore.”

  “I trust my crew to do their jobs, but I’m not going to turn into the kind of captain who thinks he’s too good to shine his own shoes.” The way Lasky looked askance as he spoke made Roland suspect that he had a particular example in mind. “I understand you’re trying to help, but that would pull someone else away from their work. I’d rather go get my own food when I have the time.”

  “First of all, sir, I’ll remind you— _respectfully_ ,” Roland added as Lasky’s frown deepened, “that there are people on this ship whose job _is_ to bring you food. How embarrassing would it be if _Infinity’s_ captain starved to death ‘cause no one would get him a sandwich? The other species would never stop laughing at us.”

  The corners of Lasky’s mouth tugged toward a smile, and Roland felt a ping of cyan. The expression faded before it really began, however, and the captain shook his head as he returned his focus to his reports.

  “Secondly…” Roland considered his next words for a few nanoseconds. “You have to stop taking unnecessary risks.”

  “Risk is part of the job. Always will be.”

  Yellow-green sprouted through him, and Roland planted his hands on his hips. “You jumped _toward_ a Knight, and then smacked it in the face with a shotgun! A _Spartan_ would be lucky to try something like that and make it back in one piece! Watching it just about gave me a coronary.”

  “You can’t get a heart attack.”

  “Try something like that again, and we’ll find out,” he shot back. Lasky gave him a sharp look, and he softened his tone again. “The point is, you put yourself in an incredible amount of danger.”

  “I had to protect Dr. Halsey.” _And I failed,_ went unspoken though it flashed across his countenance. “She’s a high-value asset.”

  “So are _you!_ You have to prioritize your own safety.”

  “Over whose? My life is not worth more than anyone else’s.”

  “Maybe not philosophically. But strategically, _yes_ , you are the most important person on this ship. You’re the commanding officer of the UNSC’s _flagship_. If you were to be killed or captured by hostile forces…” Roland trailed off. He didn’t allow that thought to finish cycling.

  Lasky was quiet, but the faint twitch of his jaw and the slight movement of his eyes indicated that he was turning over something bleak in his head. Roland reached out to his neural interface and traced the shape of his aura. Turmoil. Regret. Guilt. A vast, yawning chasm of _guilt._

  It was, by now, a familiar pattern. He’d seen it etched across the biosigns of far too many crew members, who bore their trauma like fault lines. He’d heard their whispers in moments of solitude, quietly begging the universe to answer. _Why did I live, when my squad, my friends, my family all died? Why do I deserve to be here, instead of them? Why wasn’t it_ me? _Why, why, why?_ And when humans began believing that they didn’t deserve to survive, they often unconsciously gravitated toward behavior that ensured they wouldn’t.

  “Sir,” Roland said gently, “this ship needs its captain. I’m just asking you to please, _please_ try to keep that in mind.”

  Quiet hung over the office and for a long moment,Lasky continued staring pensively into the middle distance. The fog of turmoil still clung to him, but here and there, pinpricks of _resolution_ shone through.

  “You know…” He offered a faint smile and stood up from his desk. “Scuttlebutt says Chef Jonsdottir makes a fantastic mapo dofu.”

  Roland smiled back and relaxed into viridian hues. “I’ll go ahead and put in your order.”

* * *

  “How is she?”

  “Pretty drugged up. Been mumbling a lot of stuff in Turkish.” Phan shrugged. “But about fifteen minutes ago, she woke up enough to look me dead in the eye and say, ‘Soup. Any thoughts?’ before she passed out again. So, uh… She’s doing good!”

  Subira chuckled softly, then fell silent as she glanced over to Karga, asleep in the hospital bed. She looked peaceful, if a bit ungraceful with her mouth hanging half-open and her thick mane of hair barely contained in a messy ponytail. The doctor said her shoulder was broken, and she’d been shot in the gut. Some marines had dragged Karga out of the engine room during their own retreat and given her first aid.

  Phan stood and collected his coat. “Gotta head to my shift. You okay?”

  “Yeah. Don’t worry.” She smiled then turned back to Karga, patting her hand. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  Karga stirred at the touch. “Nasimeh?” she mumbled, and gave Subira’s hand a weak squeeze.

  From the corner of her eye, she caught a worried look from Phan as he made his way out of the room. “…No,” Subira answered. She withdrew her hand from Karga’s. “It’s me.”

  The engineer’s eyes fluttered open, and she squinted against the bright lights of the room until she zeroed in on Subira. “Heeeeyyyyy, Mutungi.”

  “Hi, Karga.” She smiled. “How are you feeling?”

  “Okay. I was just thinking about…” Karga trailed off. Her lip quivered and tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. “ _Rats_.”

  “Rats?” _Well, it’s better than dwelling on Nasime_ _h_ _._

  “Yes!” Karga sat up further in her bed. “I used to have rats—did I ever tell you that? Not wild rats. I didn’t have the… didn’t have _outside_ -type rats in my house. Pets. I had pet rats. Fancy rats! They were so adorable and smart. Persika and Lingon and Hallon. Ohh, I loved them so much!”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Rats are _so_ cute. Do you think rats are cute?”

  Subira didn’t have an opinion on the matter. “Absolutely,” she agreed, just to be safe.

  “A lot of people don’t! But they’re wrong. Rats are great. They’re just these… small little creatures. Little animals. Their hands… their little paws… are so tiny.” She looked down at her own hands, then jerked her head back in surprise as her eyes darted to the inside of her right forearm. “What in fuck is this?”

  “You’re on an IV.” Subira gently swatted Karga’s hand away as she reached for the line.

  “Ohhh… Okay. Okay, okay.” She yawned, blinked a few times, then lapsed back into sleep. Three seconds later, she bolted awake once more. “Hey. Mutungi?”

  “Yes?”

  “If you see the nurse, can you ask him to give my arm back?”

  Subira clapped a hand to her mouth. After a moment, she managed to answer relatively giggle-free. “You have both of your arms.”

  Karga glanced down to her left arm, which was immobilized in a sling. “Mm, no. No, this isn’t my regular arm. I think the doctor took it?”

  “I’ll make sure they give your arm back before you leave.”

  “Awwwww, thank youuuuuu,” she gushed, settling back into the pillows. She gave Subira a sleepy grin. “You’re such a great friend. Not like Phan. Phan eats my sandwiches.”

  It didn’t take long for Karga to drift back to sleep after that, and Subira slipped out for her own evaluation. Her ribs were bruised, not broken—which was a relief to hear—and she could look forward to several weeks of icing them and downing NSAIDs. After properly dressing her wounded arm, the nurse who saw her took pity and sent her off with several extra pillows, along with strict orders not to lift anything heavy.

  An amber glow along the wall greeted her as she stepped out of Medical. “Hi, Roland,” she said, trying to poke her face around the armful of pillows she carried.

  “Good morning, Senior,” he replied through the nearest comm while she walked. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

  “I think so? I wasn’t conscious, at least,” she puzzled. “I still feel like I got run over by a _Mongoose_ , but they said everything should heal up just fine.”

  “I’m glad you remembered to get checked out.”

  “I can’t exactly forget. And I wanted something other than polly-sue for the pain. Makes me too loopy to get anything done.”

  “You’re not thinking of working, are you?” he asked, with the mildest hint of scolding in his voice.

  “No. Not exactly.”

  Roland frowned. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did. His only appearance at present was that stripe of amber light keeping pace with her along the wall. Yet she couldn’t help but feel that it was an incredibly _discontented_ stripe of light.

  “I told the other ITs to ping me if they have questions,” she clarified. “I’m not actually going in. Today, I’m going to binge-watch _Lonely Galaxy_ and sleep. _Maybe_ file a few requisition forms in between.”

  “I’m holding you to that,” he said, cheerier now.

  “Don’t you push yourself too hard, either,” she said, casting a knowing look up to one of the cameras. “Okay?

  “I won’t, Senior. Thank you,” Roland replied. She caught a brief flash of blue intermingled with the orange light along the wall. “In fact, I’ve got enough free cycles to enjoy a little downtime.”

  She cocked her head. “If you don’t mind my asking, what _is_ ‘downtime’ is for you?”

  “Socializing with some of the other AIs,” he answered brightly. “We’re playing bingo.”

* * *

  That wasn’t _precisely_ what the AIs called the game they had invented among themselves. And that wasn't precisely the way they played it, either. That was simply the easiest way to explain the game they called “Human Bingo.”

  The four of them floated in a shimmering black sea, weaving data between themselves, so that each was connected to the others. Idle thoughts and chitchat slipped along their lines like dew on spider silk, while great rivers of information snaked between them. Presently, Roland was speaking to the other three all at once, and each on their own, and in twos, and altogether a second time, and three or four times more individually.

  The expression _5 > 4_ suddenly reached him, and he heard a _pitter-patter_ of rain on soft ground.

  “Yeah,” Roland replied, drawing a tighter grasp on his conversation with Lun. “I miss Iona, too.”

  Lun didn’t speak, either to her human crew or to other AIs. Instead, she signed or communicated through text. While no one ever _spoke_ in the unnamed space between minds, the way her data reached him was ever-so slightly different than the others’ way of communicating.

  White flowers sprouted now where the raindrops had landed, and he recalled the gradual thaw of winter into spring. Anticipation, trepidation, all marbled together and bittersweet. _We can always hope for her,_ was Lun’s message.

  Roland hoped she was right.

  The question, “How are you doing, then?” vibrated in his mind through another line.

  Roland rotated one eye toward Black-Box lazily. “I’m sure you’ve already seen the captain’s report.”

  BB offered another thread of data and Roland—somewhat reluctantly—accepted it. “Oh dear, you _are_ a bit worse for wear,” the other AI muttered, examining him. “What happened to you?”

  While he (mostly) considered BB a friend, he was not in the habit of sharing more operational info than strictly necessary. If there was something BB needed to know, it was a good bet that he’d find it out himself. Otherwise, Roland tried to avoid running his mouth to a professional eavesdropper. It had also occurred to him that ONI might well be the ones responsible for the override protocol Halsey had used on him. She had been one of theirs, after all. If that was the case, there was no sense in letting BB know that he’d found and disabled it.

  “Went a few rounds with a magnet,” Roland replied flatly.

  “Okay, okay. You don’t have to tell me.” A few of BB’s vertices twisted anxiously, and he sent _concern-empathy-sympathy_.

  “Thanks,” Roland returned.

  Besides those conversations and several more, Roland was woven into the game itself. He held fast with the others, sharing in their memories and their merriment, all tied together like a cat’s cradle. This time, they had abandoned the usual rules in favor of freestyle. Everyone simply took their turns and put forth the best data they could offer. That was his favorite way to play the game.

  “Oh, I’ve got some good ones, tonight,” Astrid chuckled, all contemplation-calculation as she sorted through her memory for exactly the right bits. There was a ripple in her crimson form, and her concentration changed into anticipation-amusement-mirth as she made her play.

   _“Enjoy your meal,” said the line server._

   _“Thanks. You, too,” the Spartan replied. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wheeled around and power-walked away, a death-grip on his plate, while blushing hot up to his ears._

  “Never gets old!” Roland snickered. Lun’s gears ticked in agreement.

  Three of BB’s faces flexed in what the others understood as a grin. He pulled on the strings of their game and twisting them to add his own data.

   _An ODST was dancing alone in an empty room. Moments later, another person entered, and she immediately attempted—and failed—to look casual about her impromptu performance._

  “Oh, that’s classic!” Astrid exclaimed with a laugh.

  Roland took his turn and shared a glimpse of conversation between two marines.

   _“Hey. What’s your favorite color?”_

   _“Uhhh… Magenta.”_

  The other three froze for just an instant, then erupted into disbelieving snorts and giggles.

  “Bwaha! It’s not even a real wavelength!”

  “Magenta! Bloody hell. Was the runner-up _octarine?_ ”

  Lun was next in the order. She cast the others a self-assured look, the steely glint of her form looking like a wry smile. Weaving quickly, she shared her memory.

   _The captain had put her data pad in the fridge and simultaneously laid her sandwich on the charging station next to it. She walked out of the room without batting an eye._

  Humans could be so brilliant, so noble, so courageous. They could be swift and powerful and graceful, yet the very next moment, they might forget the glasses on their own face. What strange and wonderful creatures. The next few rounds of play were lighting-quick, punctuated with conversation and shared mirth.

   _Slapped own ass to check for a key card. Looked up pictures of puppies while drunk; proceeded to cry. Ended a call with superior officer by saying, “Love you, too.” Angrily tried to swear; only managed to blurt out, “Biscuits!” instead. Pretended mop handle was a sword while cleaning. Giddily exclaimed, “You’re a kitty!” to ship’s cat._

  Roland cycled a little faster, giddy as he prepared to play his next hand.

  “Something you want to share with the class?” BB asked.

  Lun nudged him and transmitted the thought of a bird taking flight. _Your turn!_

  “Look what I found today in the galley.” Roland shared his recordings, adding with a sing-song tone, “Someone got a label-maker!”

  BB radiated _confusion_. “Is that—?”

  “ _Spinch?!_ ” Astrid blurted, scrutinizing the data. “The salad bar has _‘spinch’?_ ”

  “They also have… _‘tomzto’_ and ‘leuttce,’” BB noted, every side of his 4-dimensional form quivering as he giggled.

  Lun indicated the tray of the little stale bread cubes that humans liked on salads. The label beneath them read, “ _cretins_.”

  There was no sound to accompany Lun’s laugh, or even the impression of sound. Instead, it was a sense of rollicking buoyancy and the feeling of tumbling down a warm, grassy hill in the summer. Roland wasn’t sure if he—if his engram donor—had ever known what that was like, but Lun did and when she laughed the rest of them could know it, too. He always liked her laughter.

  Astrid and BB each trembled in near hysterics. The threads of the game shook with peals of laughter, and would have left them all in tears and short of breath if they’d had either of those things. Laughing with them, Roland found it easier to put aside his worries and stress. Subira was right. He couldn’t control everything. But he could take care of his ship and take care of his crew, and he was happy now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience on this chapter, everyone! I try to shoot for 1-2 chapters per month, but September was extremely busy. Everyone's lovely comments and kudos have really kept me going on this!
> 
> And extra thanks to [Corey-067](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aliit_Netra/pseuds/Corey-067) and 1Hellcat for letting me include Astrid and Lun, respectively. :)


	12. Bug Report

_UNSC_ Infinity

_Requiem, Epoloch System_

_February 23 rd, 2558_

  It looked like a fat, jeweled beetle—if that beetle was also a crushed beer can. There was a time not long ago when a captured Phantom would have been a goldmine for the UNSC, no matter how battered it was. ONI techs would have descended on the site and stripped its carcass like maggots; Subira had seen that happen a couple times over her career. She wondered how the hell Fireteam Crimson had gotten this craft, but she also knew better than to ask.

  She eyed the vehicle as she approached, still half-expecting it to spring to life and open up its belly to disgorge turrets and troops. Anxiously, she reached to tug her gear bag closer to her body, only to remember that she wasn’t carrying it.

  “Wah mu’uvu reeoh?” Xovu ‘Surom nudged her good arm, and tilted his head in concern.

  “Yeah.” She nodded and cleared her throat. “Mu’uvoh. Biku.”

  He readjusted the strap of her gear bag on his shoulder, and walked ahead to the Phantom. Xovu had offered to carry it, since the weight strained her still-recovering ribs; at his hip, he wore the sword she had given him. «You catch on quickly,» he said, and the translation came over her data pad’s speakers.

  “Thank you,” she replied. The data pad relayed her own words in Sangheili. “And thank you for teaching me. So, how do we get this thing open?”

  Xovu looked the bay door over for a moment, then reached up and felt along the top of it, as if searching. He gave a pleased _chirrr_ , having apparently located what he sought, then hooked his clawed fingers over a small gap about arm’s length above his head. «With force,» he answered.

  Holding onto the top of the bay door’s right side, the Sangheili pulled himself up and braced his feet against the side of the Phantom. It creaked under his weight before yawning open, and he dropped back down to the floor. He climbed into the craft, gesturing for her to follow.

  The Phantom’s troop bay was empty—no seats, no gun racks, nothing—and completely dark save for the light streaming in through the open door. This was the first time she had been in or even seen the interior of a Covenant craft. She wondered if it was always this bare, or if another crew had stripped the Phantom after moving it here. Subira let her eyes adjust, and looked around for anything that might be a light.

  “Is there any power?”

  «The impulse drive has shut down, but it should be functional. If not, the batteries will have some reserve power.»

  Her Sangheili partner seemed unbothered by the darkness, and plodded toward the half-open door that separated the troop bay from the cockpit. Subira held up her flashlight, and the two of them peered inside.

  “ _Shit_ ,” she muttered to herself as she caught a look at the damage. _And they pulled someone out of here? Hope he lived…_

  “Ehn?” Xovu queried. «What is _shhtt?_ »

  She flushed. “Er, an English curse. Shit,” she repeated, enunciating. “It means ‘excrement.’ You know, I probably shouldn’t be teaching you vulgarity.”

  “Shit!” Xovu parroted, grinning Sangheili-style. «Sounds like a Kig-yar’s hiss.»

  They picked their way through the wreckage and debris still littering the cockpit. Xovu squeezed between the pilots’ seats and swept his arm across the console, sending still more chunks of shimmery metal and lamellar clattering to the floor. He stared at the console, twisting his head back and forth,and made a briefseries of clicks with his mandibles.

  “What’s wrong?”

  «This is a Type-44,» he explained. «An older model, and a little different from our own troop carriers. I am trying to recall the control layout…»

  It was then that Subira was forced to remember, uncomfortably, that the Swords of Sanghelios had not sprung up fully-formed, but had been carved out of the Covenant whose remnants they now sought to subdue. All but the very youngest of its warriors had once served the Covenant. And Xovu was no fresh-faced recruit.

  A sudden glow washed over the cockpit, turning her thoughts back to their task as the Phantom’s holographic controls sprang to life. Subira stepped closer and peered down at the console. It was a riot of triangles and pink. She blinked and turned away before the relentless neon put spots in her vision.

  “How are we doing on power?” she asked.

  «Reserves are low, but we have enough for an hour or two.» Xovu set down the gear bag, then crouched down and ripped away a dented panel from the front of the console. He glanced back at her and handed her a cable. «Unggoy usually do this kind of work.»

  Subira couldn’t tell if that was an expression of displeasure or a mere statement of fact. She gave him a half-smile as they traded places and she sat down on the floor. “It never hurts to learn a new skill, right?”

  “ _Hrrummm_...” Xovu looked unconvinced.

  Lying back carefully, she used her feet to push herself into the opening he had exposed under the bank of the console. “Okay. I see why Sangheili don’t do this,” she grunted as she scooted back. “This is a pretty tight squeeze.”

  Thankfully, there was more room once she was further inside the crawlspace. Subira laid her flashlight down by her head, and reached up into the guts of the controls. The Phantom’s internals were a complete departure from the colors and textures of human technology. Along with lingering scents of the Phantom’s prior occupants, there was a strong, almost resinous smell about everything.

  «The databank should be directly above you,» Xovu called. «It is a round device with a blue circular inset. Or maybe it is green in the Type-44s…»

  “Round. Green or blue. That describes a lot of things in here.”

  «It bears the glyph for memory.»

  “Great. What does that look like?”

  «Ah. Hm. Well, there is a circle with a bent, rounded line through it and another curved line. Then a rounded, twisting line plus _another_ circle—»

  She slid her hand upward through the nest of wires, and touched something smooth and round. As well as something sticky. Subira recoiled and pulled her hand away.

  “There’s some kind of… sap leaking in here.” She grimaced to herself. “Should I be worried?”

  «The coolant lines have ruptured. It probably won’t harm you,» he assured.

  “ _Probably?_ ”

  «Try not to get it in your mouth?»

  Pursing her lips tightly, she felt around until her hand brushed across something spherical. “I think I found the databank. Is it plugged directly into a power conduit?”

  «Yes! There should be a small port below the glyph on its shell.»

  “Got it.” She inserted the cable she held, then scooted back out of the crawlspace and plugged the other end into her data pad.

  «I hope this has not worsened your injuries,» Xovu said with a warbling note.

  “It’s… not ideal,” she admitted. Even with the painkillers, she could feel a dull ache seeping back into her muscles as she stood. “I can manage, though. Just don’t tell Roland.”

  “Don’t tell Roland what?” her data pad piped up with the AI’s voice. He couldn’t see inside the Phantom, but he could hear. “You’re not stressing your ribs, are you?”

  “I’ll be fine. After my shift is over, I’ll have Phan bury me in ice packs. But thank you for worrying over me.” She chuckled and began wiping the coolant off her hand.

  “That _is_ my job,” he replied cheerfully. “By the way, that coolant won’t do anything but stain your skin blue for a day or so. Still probably shouldn’t get it in your mouth.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Subira turned her hand over, frowning at the bright blue streaks running down her fingers and palm.

  Xovu cast her a sidelong glance. «Does he listen to _everything_ on this ship?»

  “Tchee. Saa- _nakharuh_ ,” Roland replied.

  The Sangheili started and his mandibles flared apprehensively.

  “Don’t worry. Your secrets are safe with me, Sword,” he said in both English and Sangheili at once, laughing. “Now, let’s take look at the encryption on this databank! I bet it’s just chock full of interesting tidbits about our Covie friends.”

  As Roland spoke, a black-and-amber text field popped up on the datapad’s screen.

  >> Captain wants to see you in the ready room at 1400, Senior.

* * *

  Despite repeated assurances from Roland that this was _not_ a disciplinary hearing, Subira’s nerves felt tight as bowstrings. She could count on one hand the amount of times she had spoken to Captain Lasky either before or since his promotion, and had spoken to Captain Del Rio even less. She didn’t terribly mind that. If a captain wanted to talk to an NCO longer than it took to say what a fine Navy day it was, then something was probably wrong.

  She took her seat in front of his desk, and tried not to let her mind race down the rabbit hole of wondering exactly what was broken and exactly how much of a pain in the ass it was going to be to fix or replace. She couldn’t help but notice, too, that Roland had taken the precaution of texting the summons to her on a screen that Sangheili couldn’t read, rather than informing her aloud in the Xovu’s presence. Roland had also cleared her schedule for the rest of the day, and approved it with ITCM Myiow.

  “I apologize for taking you away from your work,” the captain said, breaking the silence as he looked up from his data pad. He gave her a pleasant smile, but there was a residual trace of worry on his face. “Thank you for meeting with me, Senior Chief Mutungi.”

  She hated interviews like this; they always seemed to drag on forever. She smiled back in spite of it. “Of course, sir.”

  “Roland,” Lasky called.

  “Aye, sir?”

  “You’re dismissed. Authorization: Lasky Delta-Zero-Seven.”

  There was a chirp, followed by the barely perceptible sound of electronics powering down. Or rather, she supposed, there was a slight increase in silence. Roland had left the room entirely.

  Subira tried to look relaxed or, failing that, at least professional. _What the hell is this about?_

  Captain Lasky looked up, his brow wrinkled and a frown creeping up to the corners of his mouth. “I realize this is unusual,” he said, flicking his gaze up toward the ceiling. “But I’d like you to be able to speak candidly.”

   _This isn’t about me, then._ “This is about Roland.”

  “Yes. More specifically, I’m concerned about his… _anomalous_ behavior just prior to the Covenant incursion,” he replied. “I’ve read your full report, but if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to hear what happened that day from your personal perspective.”

  Subira tried to unclench her jaw and breathe evenly. She wasn’t sure if this made her more or less nervous. “Yes, sir.”

  The captain gestured for her to begin, and lowered his gaze slightly. She sighed involuntarily, glad that he wasn't planning to stare her in the eye through this entire meeting. Although she had learned to tolerate that over the years, it never made things easier. Thankfully, Lasky had enough cultural tact to realize how rude that felt to Kenyan sailors. Del Rio had either never picked up on it, or never cared.

  She collected her thoughts, and began recounting the events from the beginning. Lasky listened patiently, occasionally taking notes on his data pad, but never interrupted.

  “Based on my interactions with him over the last two days, sir,” Subira concluded, “along with available system information, I don’t believe that Roland _himself_ has suffered any permanent damage.” Her voice hitched a little then, as she recalled their conversation in the server room. How he’d left the holodisk to communicate through her data pad, as if anything else was too exhausting, how tired and weak he had seemed.

  “Did Roland ever tell you exactly what Dr. Halsey did while the override was in effect?”

  “No, sir. I honestly didn’t think to ask him that.”

  He sighed and began reciting Halsey’s escapades. “She used Roland to spoof orders from myself to the marines guarding her, gain full use of the terminal in this ready room, access highly classified information, and had him prep a Pelican to depart from _Infinity_.”

  Her stomach sank like a rock and cold dread oozed in after it. That was only a fraction of what Roland was capable of doing. If Halsey had been of a mind to do it, and if Roland hadn’t broken free when he had, the damage could have been far greater.

  “I see.”

  Lasky paused for a beat, regarding her silence. “Senior Chief, if there’s more—something subjective that you didn’t include, something you felt the UNSC wouldn’t find important—I want to know.”

  “There is one thing that stood out to me, sir,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “When I spoke to him after, um, after everything was over…” She took a deep breath. Her arm twinged. _Don’t think about it._ “Roland told me that he was in pain.” Her whole body tensed as she awaited the captain’s reaction.

  “ _Pain?_ ” Lasky's brows shot up, and for a moment he looked directly at her, as if he hadn’t heard correctly.

  She nodded and fought the urge to shift uncomfortably in her seat. She knew how crazy that sounded to most people.

  “Makes sense. He hasn’t been his usual self lately. Not enough sass,” Lasky muttered the last bit almost to himself, and the corner of his mouth twitched into a rueful smile. “I thought it was just my imagination, but he seems… worn out.”

  Subira closed her eyes briefly, grateful that he hadn’t ordered her off to a psych eval.

  “To the best of my knowledge,” Lasky said, picking up the earlier line of discussion, “Dr. Halsey had no interaction with Roland prior to coming aboard and was not involved in his design or programming. I find it worrisome that she not only knew this override existed, but had a valid key phrase to activate it.”

  Although he didn’t say as much, it was clear from Lasky’s tone that _he_ hadn’t known the override existed.

  “That makes me question what _other_ ‘back doors’ might exist in Roland’s code,” Lasky continued. “Until I know for certain that our ship AI can’t be compromised by the next waifish war criminal who comes aboard, I don't think I’m going to be able to sleep.”

  She was beginning to feel that this information was a little above her pay grade. But the captain wasn’t telling her this just to make conversation—she’d been called here for a reason. Subira spread her hands flat to keep from clenching them in fear. She spoke before she could stop herself.

  “Are you going to deactivate him?”

  Lasky seemed to chew on the question before answering. “I haven’t ruled out suspension and quarantine as an emergency measure. Final dispensation would be an extreme last resort.”

  Subira lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “What would you like me to do, sir?”

  The captain sat forward, hands clasped, elbows braced on the desk. “I’d like you to review Roland's code to the best of your ability. With his cooperation, of course. If you come across _anything_ suspicious, note it, dissect it, and get rid of it. I need to know that Roland is _Roland_ , and that he can’t be used against this ship or any member of its crew. I’m sure you’ve already guessed, but from the moment you step out of this room, every facet of your assignment is to be treated as strictly classified and eyes-only. You and I—and Roland—are the only ones who can know the nature of your work.”

  “I…” She had her suspicions about the origin of that override, but she didn’t dare voice them. “Yes. Of course, sir.”

  “Do you have any questions, Senior Chief?”

  “Not a question as such, but I am surprised you’ve chosen me for this, sir, and not someone from the science cadre. Isn’t there an AI specialist?”

  “There _was_.”

  Dr. Halsey. Of course.

  “The UNSC didn’t think AI research would be a priority for this campaign. Even if they had assigned someone with that specialization, I’m not particularly eager to entrust this task anyone outside of ship ranks after everything that’s happened,” Lasky said. “More importantly, Roland _specifically_ requested you for this assignment. Since this is going to involve poking around in, what is essentially his brain, I think it’s only fair to give him a say.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do—” Subira stopped herself short of saying, _my best_. There would be no room for error. “I’ll get it done.”

* * *

  “Thank you,” Roland said, as she sat down in front of the main terminal, “for doing this.”

  It didn’t feel right to say, “You’re welcome.” Instead, Subira replied, “You’re awfully calm about this.”

  “Saying I shouldn’t be?” There was a teasing note in his voice. More warmly, he added, “You’ve been studying this for years.”

  “I’m…” _Nobody wants to hear that their brain surgeon has cold feet,_ she reminded herself. “I never expected to be working on someone who’s alive.”

  Roland chuckled softly at her choice of words, and her cheeks flushed.

  “ _Active_. You know what I mean.” She had edited live code for dumb AIs during her career. Her study of smart AIs, however, had been focused on initial programming and theory; there was little research available on live edits. That was one of the handy features of smart AIs, after all—once they were online, they were self-sustaining. Human intervention only came back into the picture at the end of their lifespans.

  She began laying out her tools, and took in a deep breath of the server room’s chill air. Roland sat cross-legged in the holodisk in front of her, chin propped up in his hands, as he watched her preparations.

  “First, I need to examine the nano-assemblage of your chip for physical anomalies. Then I’ll start looking through your code. You’ll have to be awake for all of this,” she said apologetically.

  His avatar exhaled visibly. “Whew! Okay, that’s good to hear.”

  She arched an eyebrow.

  “I’ve never _not_ been awake. It sounds scary.” He paused and stood. “Sorry. Am I being too glib? You’re nervous.”

  Subira began to protest, but realized that was useless. He wasn’t guessing when he said that; he could see her biosigns. “This won’t be a simple procedure. It’s not going to be easy. And—” She bit her lip. “It could be painful.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He smiled fondly, if a little sadly, at that. “We both know the alternative.”

  She took another deep breath. “Are you sure about this? About me, I mean. If there’s someone else who can—”

  “I don’t want anyone else.”

  She stared down at her hands, one still stained blue from coolant, and tried to focus on the calming hum of the server fans. “What if I make a mistake?”

  Roland chewed his lower lip in thought—a wholly unnecessary and deliberate movement. It occurred to her that he wouldn’t have done such a thing just a couple weeks ago.

  “When we met, I looked up your dossier,” he said. “I read what happened on your last posting.”

  The UNSC _Hunter’s Season_.

  Sometimes, the memories felt like a movie, like something she had watched rather than her own experiences. They became nothing more than a series of facts and events, which she had now recounted so many times for official purposes that all the emotion had slid off of them like oil.

  Other times, the impressions returned to her mind like smoke, acrid but amorphous. She would fumble with a tool or hear a noise or catch the scent of melted plastic, and panic would pull her down like a rip current. Meds and therapy had lessened that, but it still caught her from time to time.

  Then there were the rare, fearful nights when she lied awake, fruitlessly chasing sleep, while her thoughts drifted back through time and space against her will. It was in those moments that she remembered huddling in the shadows of the data stacks, eyes and lungs raw from the smoke, sweat dripping down her face and under her collar, while she tried to tear her gaze away from Rochow’s lifeless body. She remembered the distant screeches of Grunts and Jackals, and dying humans.

  “Everyone was evacuating. Except you,” Roland said. “You were right by the lifeboats, and you went _back_.”

  Her fingers would go cold with the memory of willing her hands to stop shaking as she worked, and the sickening twist in her gut because she had been certain she was going to die—if she was lucky. She remembered the stench of burning electronics, and the sound of her own pulse hammering so loud in her ears that it became the only sound in the universe.

  “I didn’t understand it when we met, but I think I do now.”

  She remembered the bitterness in her heart at telling a lie which she could only hope might become truth. She remembered promising Narundi that she would get them to safety, and how certain she was that she couldn’t keep that promise. She remembered how the corners of the AI’s chip bit into her palms as she held it in a death grip, to keep Narundi safe—or snap the chip two if she couldn’t.

  “You cited the Cole Protocol in your report,” he continued, “but the ship was going to be scuttled. It wouldn’t have mattered if you left that AI onboard.”

  Today, she didn’t relive those moments. Today was the kind of day when the memories were comfortably distant—just raindrops on glass, which lingered for a moment before sliding away. Today, the only emotion Subira recalled was the heartbreak of realizing that the person who had guided their ship, who had kept them safe, who had been their friend and confidant for so many years was about to be left behind.

  “It mattered to her.”

  Roland gave her another sad smile. “I am scared.” He wrapped his arms around himself. “I’m afraid this will hurt. I’m afraid there really _is_ something wrong with me. I’m afraid I can’t trust myself—that I’m not who I think I am. I’m afraid I could hurt someone or damage the ship. Having you on this task is the one thing that _doesn’t_ scare me.”

  She looked up.

  “Because I know that whatever happens, you won’t give up on me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _A big thank-you to FlamingLambo for helping me with Lasky's dialogue in this chapter!_


End file.
